HYPOCOLIUS. 357 



(378) Hypocolius ampelinus. 

 THE G-REY HYPOCOLIUS. 



Hypocolius ampelinus Bonap., Consp. Av., i, p. 336 (1850) (N.E. 

 Africa) ; Blanf. & Gates, i, p. 250. 



Vernacular names. None recorded. 



Description. Male. From the lores, through the eye widening 

 to a broad band on the nape black ; forehead, crown, chin, cheeks, 

 throat, the middle of the abdomen, vent, thighs and under tail- 

 coverts pinkish cream-colour; remainder of the body plumage, 

 wing-coverts and inner secondaries drab-grey ; winglet and 

 primary-coverts blackish, shaded with ashy and partially margined 

 with grey ; primaries black, with broad white tips shaded with 

 grey on the first two or three ; outer secondaries black, broadly 

 edged and tipped with ashy, the black diminishing in amount on 

 the later quills and occupying only a portion of the inner web- 

 tail drab-grey, broadly tipped black. 



Fig. 68. Head of H. ampelinus. 



Colours of soft parts. Irides brown ; bill black in the breeding 

 season ; flesh-coloured with a black tip in non-breeding season 

 and in the young ; legs, feet and claws flesh-colour. 



Measurements. Length about 250 mm.; wing 100 to 110 mm.; 

 tail about 115 mm. ; tarsus about 23 mm. ; culmen 15 to 16 mm. 



Female. The upper plumage and the whole wing greyish isabel- 

 line, the quills shaded with brown interiorly and edged and tipped 

 with light grey ; the tail is merely brown towards the end and 

 tipped paler ; the lower plumage pinkish cream-colour, suffused 

 with drab-grey across the breast ; there is no black on head or 

 nape. 



Nestling. " A fortnight to three weeks old the first primary is 

 almost entirely sooty, all the others being graded with the same " 

 (Cumming) . 



Young male like the female but has the white wing-patch from 

 the earliest stages of plumage. 



Immature female has the secondaries tipped with white. 



Distribution. Persia, working South in March to Bushire and a 

 little later to Fao and other places on the shores of the Persian 

 G-ulf. A rare straggler down the Mekran coast and into Sind 

 and Khelat. First recorded from North-East Africa. 



