Letters, Announcements, S^c, 235 



from the true S. cenanthe of Europe, no one could ever confound 

 it with the females of S. picata (vel capistrata) or of S. leucu- 

 roides, which are of a wholly different shade of brown. On the 

 other hand, the females of S. atrogularis might easily be, and 

 constantly are, mistaken for S. cenanthe ; but the bills and feet 

 are feebler, the birds are slightly smaller and lighter (in weight, 

 I mean). There is no supercilium, or only a trace of it ; the lores 

 are grey ; all the tail-feathers are nearly wholly black, there are 

 no narrow white tips; and the upper tail-coverts are fawn- 

 coloured. S. ati'ogularis is common in waste places all over the 

 Punjaub and the North-west Provinces west of Cawnpoor. 



S. picata vel capistrata (I do not know which name is the 

 earlier"^) is very common in this portion of the cis-Sutledge 

 States of the Punjaub, and is found occasionally throughout the 

 North-west Provinces westward of Allahabad, but of course only 

 in suitable localities — wastes thickly dotted with thorny scrub. 



Saxicola leucuroides is the rarest of all, 1 believe, so far at least 

 as number of specimens is concerned ; but even this species is 

 not very uncommon in many localities in the Punjaub, North- 

 west Provinces, Oude, and the Central Provinces, and has, it 

 strikes me, a wider range in India than any of the others. I 

 have, however, observed this less closely than the other species ; 

 and therefore, although some of the specimens now before me 

 lead me to doubt whether even this is a good species, I say no- 

 thing more about it for the present. I hope soon to send you 

 a paper on our Indian Saxicola, with a series of specimens, male 

 and female, of all of them. 



Pelecanus crispus must be added to the birds of India. I 

 have now quite recently shot a third specimen. Mr. Blyth, in 

 a letter to me, seemed to doubt the correctness of my identifica- 

 tion ; but there can, I think, be little doubt of the species. The 

 large size, the feathers of the forehead not prolonged to a point, 

 but ending squarely emarginate, the pearly whiteness of the 

 plumage, the black shafts of the feathers, the coloration of the 

 bill and feet, all seem to me to prove the species. One specimen 



* [We believe there can be no doubt on this point. S. picata was de- 

 scribed many years ago by Mr. Blyth ; S. capistrata was only recently 

 separated by Mr. Gould from the S. leucomela of Pallas.— Ed.] 



