238 BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 



Bill pinkish yellow,, the lateral portions of the upper mandible with large 

 bluish-black spots ; the nail and terminal halves of both mandibles orange- 

 yellow ; the central portions of the sides of the lower mandible smeared 

 with bluish black ; pouch dull purple, blotched and spotted with bluish 

 black ; eyelids and skin round the eye orange-yellow ; skin in front of 

 the eye livid ; legs and feet very dark brown ; claws yellowish horn-colour ; 

 iris stone-white, varying to pale yellow clouded with brown. 



Length 57 inches, tail (of twenty-two feathers) 8 to 9'5, wing 22 to 24, 

 tarsus 3'3 to 3'8, bill from gape 13*5 to 14'5. The female is smaller, but 

 not conspicuously so. 



In nonbreeding -plumage (March to August). The adults assume the 

 same plumage as that worn by the young after the first moult. 



The Spotted-billed Pelican is found in all the lowlands of Burmah, but 

 is especially abundant in the swampy plains between the Pegu and the 

 Sittang rivers, and again in the plains between the Sittang and the Sal- 

 ween rivers. 



It is met with over a considerable portion of the Indian peninsula as 

 far west as Scinde, and to the south as far as Ceylon ; it extends to China, 

 whence I have examined Mr. Swinhoe's specimens ; it is found in Cochin 

 China and Siam, and it ranges down the Malay peninsula to Java, Borneo 

 and the Philippine Islands. 



There seems no room to doubt that Gmelin's two names P. manillensis and 

 P '. philippensis apply to this species, nor that his P. roseus applies to the next. 

 This latter name was founded by Gmelin on Latham's " Rose-coloured 

 Pelican" (Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 579), which name was again derived by Latham 

 from Sonnerat's " Le pelican rose de Pisle de Lu9on " (Voy. Nouv. Gum. 

 p. 91, t. 54). The Spotted-billed Pelican is never at any stage of its 

 existence rose-coloured, whereas the White Pelican during the breeding- 

 season is of a beautiful rose-colour throughout. The confusion which 

 has arisen regarding the names of these two species is due I think to the 

 paucity of specimens in European museums, and the consequent ignorance 

 regarding the plumages of the two species. The British Museum now 

 possesses upwards of fifty specimens of Pelicans procured by myself in 

 Burmah ; and an inspection of these skins will, I venture to think, lead 

 European ornithologists to agree with me in assigning the name P. manil- 

 lensis to the Spotted-billed Pelican and P. roseus to the next species, 

 usually termed P.javanicus. 



P. rufescens, the fourth name assigned by Gmelin to a Pelican, is clearly 

 applicable to the Abyssinian bird, a species similar in general appearance 

 to P. manillensis, but differing in several constant characters. In the first 

 place, the crest is not curly, but composed of straight, pointed feathers 

 three or four inches long ; in the second, the feathers of the mane on the 

 hind neck are also straight, not curly and soft ; and in the third, the bill 



