310 DICKFRID^E. 



Genus DICRURUS, Yieill., 1816. 



The Drongos of this genus are among the commonest of Indian 

 birds, one or other of the species being found in every part of the 

 country which is open or cultivated, and even in forest. 



The various species of Drongos are not easily separable, except 

 when large series of each are available for examination side by 

 side. "With the numerous specimens in the British Museum, the 

 majority of which came from the Tweeddale and Hume Collections, 

 I have been able to establish eight species which occur within my 

 limits. 



I am unable to find any characters by which the genus Buchanga 

 can be separated from Dicrurut. The former is said to have a 

 more deeply forked tail ; but this feature cannot be regarded as of 

 generic value, for it varies in all the species of this genus, and is a 

 matter of degree only. T have therefore united the two genera, 



Taking the eight species, it is easy at once to separate two from 

 all the others by their perfectly black plumage, and from each 

 other by the extent to which the tail is forked. These two species 

 present no difficulty, and no one has seriously proposed to sub- 

 divide either of them into two or more races so far as Indian spe- 

 cimens are concerned. The African species or race D. assimilis 

 need not be discussed here. 



Another species, D. leucogenys, is also an easily recognizable 

 one, having the sides of the head white. Very young birds might 

 be confused with the Grey Drongos, presently to be noticed, were 

 it not that they have the lores white or whitish, whereas the Grey 

 Drongos have the lores dark brown or black. If D. intermedius, 

 Blyth, recorded from Penang, was really killed at that place, and 

 was not imported into it and subsequently re-exported to Calcutta 

 (where it came under Blyth's notice), it must have been a young 

 .D. leucogenys. "No other species of Dicrurus is known to occur in 

 the Malay peninsula, at least near Penang. Blyth's title is too 

 doubtful to be applied to any species. 



Next come three species which may be termed Ashy or Grey 

 Drongos. No two authors agree about these birds, and unanimous 

 agreement regarding them will probably never be reached. In my 

 opinion there are three distinct species in India and Burma, and 

 no more. The differences in the shade of colour and in size in 

 these species are correlated with different areas of distribution. 

 There is, first, D. longicaudatus, which is found from the Hima- 

 layas to Ceylon and east to the Brahmaputra river. The upper 

 plumage of this bird may be termed metallic indigo, and the lower 

 a dark grey. South of the Brahmaputra, extending to Lower Pegu 

 and Northern Tenasserim, the foregoing species is replaced by a 

 bird the upper plumage of which may be termed bluish grey and 

 the lower ashy grey. This bird is also found in Java, Lombock, 



