80 Mr. E. Blyth's Addenda to the Avifauna of India. 



In a specimen of Coracias garrula obtained in Kashmir, a 

 trace of intermixture faith C. indica is very discernible in the 

 plumage, showing that the latter interbreeds with C. garrula 

 to the westward, as it does with C. affinis to the eastward. A 

 similar hybrid Roller is noticed by Mr. Bell among some birds 

 captured on the Red and Arabian Seas (Proc. As. Soc. Beng. 

 1870, p. 249). 



A Jackdaw in the same collection, from Kashmir, has the 

 distinguishing crescentic mark assigned to Corvus collaris 

 tolerably well pronounced. 



Mr. W. E. Brooks is of opinion that Sylvia curruca should be 

 expunged from the list of Indian birds, as he supposes that 

 the larger S. affinis, nobis, has been mistaken for it. Several 

 specimens, however, obtained by myself above the tideway of 

 the river Hugh were undistinguishable from British examples, 

 and I have only seen S. affinis from Upper and Southern 

 India. The two differ only in size, and in this much less than 

 do the sexes of Cheetornis striatus, Megalurus palustris, or the 

 Australian Cinclorhamphus cruralis. Sylvia jerdoni, nobis, 

 is distinguished by its conspicuously longer bill from the 

 European S. orphea. 



In Lower Bengal I have seen many dozens of specimens of 

 Rallus indicus, nobis (japonicus, Schlegel), but never the true 

 R. aquaticus ; but Mr. Gould has several examples of the lat- 

 ter from other parts of India, and not any of the former. 

 Hence it is probable that the more eastern form does not 

 range westward of the valley of the Lower Ganges, but is else- 

 where replaced in India by the western form, as Erythrosterna 

 leucura (of Nipal, Lower Bengal, Assam, and Burmah) is re- 

 green, not black as in the males." Surely a green moustache indicates the 

 young bird, as in the Malayan P. longicaudatm, supposed by me at one 

 time to constitute a particular species, which I named P. viridimystax. 

 At a late auction at Stevens's were sold a pair of P. eryt/iroyenys, with 

 red and black upper mandible respectively ; and certainly my impression 

 is that the presumed female had black moustachial marks. Together with 

 them were sold three specimens of P. caniceps, nobis, two of them with 

 red and one with black upper mandible. Where procured, I could not 

 learn ; but previously only two examples of P. caniceps had been recorded. 



