Mr. E. Bly th's Addenda to the Avifauna of India. 79 



VI. — Addenda to the Avifauna of India. By Edward Blyth, 



F.Z.S., Hon. Memb. As. Soc. Beng. 

 In the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's Park, there is 

 now a fine specimen of Acridotheres mahrattensis (Sykes) of 

 Southern India, as distinguished from A. fuscus of Northern 

 India and Burma ; and both species may there be seen alive in 

 adjacent cages. Not only are the irides of A. mahrattensis 

 white, and those of A. fuscus yellow (as duly noticed by 

 Jerdon), but the bill of the former is wholly yellow, and the 

 median tail-feathers are more broadly tipped with white, in 

 which latter particular it again differs from the very nearly 

 allied A. cinereus of Celebes (figured by Lord Walden in the 

 'Transactions of the Zoological Society/ vol. viii. pi. 10). 

 Furthermore, both in A. mahrattensis and A. cinereus the 

 short frontal crest is conspicuously less developed than in 

 A. fuscus. They must accordingly henceforward rank as 

 sufficiently distinguished species. 



There is a Palaornis in the same collection, said to have 

 been received from Kashmir, which is certainly a mistake ; and 

 I find three specimens of the same race in the British Museum, 

 obtained in the Tenasserim provinces. The living bird is 

 labelled P. melanorhyncha, Wagler. As seen together with 

 three living examples of P. ponticerianus, its distinctness as a 

 species is sufficiently manifest to the eye, more so than would 

 appear from description. The cap is bluish grey, without any of 

 the ruddy tinge which is always seen in the other; and it is partly 

 bordered on the sides of the neck by a strip of red feathers 

 of the same colour as the breast, which is a good distinguish- 

 ing character. Moreover the irides are conspicuously white, 

 whereas in the other they are dark. To the black colour of 

 the bill I attach no importance, unless the specimen should 

 prove to be a male ; for in several kindred species the bill is 

 black in the female sex, but never in the male, so far as ob- 

 served hitherto. The same extension of the red colouring to 

 the border of the grey cap is likewise seen in the large P. 

 derbianus (P.Z.S. 1850, pi. xxv.)*. 



* I see that in the Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 1872, p. 279, Mr. V. Ball states 

 that in the female of Pal<eomis erythrogenys, nobis, " the moustache is deep 



