PTREHOPICUS. 49 



Bill brownish olivaceous, somewhat paler beneath ; iris white, 

 greyish white, yellowish white, or reddish white ; eyelid and orbital 

 skin dull mauve or purplish ; legs and feet greenish plumbeous 

 (Legge). 



Length 4-8 ; tail 1-6 ; wing 2-9 ; tarsus -55 ; bill from gape -65. 



Distribution. Throughout Ceylon up to about 3000 feet above 

 the sea, also the Malabar coast and the ranges near it as far north 

 as the Palni hills, and perhaps farther. Malabar specimens have 

 the heads rather paler than Ceylonese, and are the race called 

 /. peninsularis by Hargitt, and the specimens thus labelled by him 

 in the British Museum include the Malabar skins of /. yymno- 

 phtlialmus and the Belgaum and Mysore specimens already men- 

 tioned of /. Tiardwickii. There is evidently in this, as in many 

 similar cases, a passage between two well-marked forms. 



Habits, fyc. Similar to those of other lyngipici. This bird is 

 thoroughly arboreal and frequents the uppermost branches of trees, 

 picking up small insects, and often perching. It has considerable 

 powers of flight, and its note, according to Legge, is a prolonged 

 trill. It breeds in February and March, and also in July, nesting 

 in holes in small branches, and the white eggs measure about '62 

 by -53 *. 



Genus PYRRHOPICUS, Malherbe, 1861. 



Bill long and stout, culmen angulate, almost straight ; nasal 

 ridge strongly developed, nearer to the culmen than to the com- 

 missure at the base of the bill ; nostrils open, not concealed by 

 plumes; chin-angle nearly halfway from gape to tip of bill; no 

 crest. Wings rounded, primaries scarcely exceeding secondaries 



* IYNGIPICUS NANUS. 



? Picus nanus, Vigors, P. Z. S. 1831, p. 172 (1832). 



lyngipicus nanus, Hargitt, Ibis, 1882, p. 38 ; id. Cat. B. M. xviii, p. 327 ; 

 Gould, B. Asia, vi, pi. xxxiv. 



Coloration. Crown and eye-stripe dark brown, nape very dark ; supercilium 

 extending to neck and a band below the eye-stripe white ; upper parts dark 

 brown with white cross-bands ; all tail-feathers spotted, the spots on the outer 

 webs of the primaries small ; chin and throat pure white, bordered on each side 

 by a brown malar stripe; rest of lower parts sullied white with indistinct 

 rather broad brown streaks. Male with, as usual, a red streak on each side of 

 the occiput. 



Wing 3'05 inches; tail 1'6; tarsus -65 ; bill from gape '7. 



Distribution. Three specimens collected by Captain Stackhouse Pinwill, one 

 at Dharnisala, the other two in North-western India, are in the British Museum, 

 and have been referred by Hargitt to Vigors's species, which was said to be from 

 the N.W. Himalayas, and with the description of which they agree fairly. At 

 the same time they are, as Hargitt points out, only just separable from the 

 Malay /. auritus, and it is difficult to believe that all the ornithologists who have 

 ransacked the N.W. Himalayas of late years can have overlooked this bird, 

 which is easily distinguished from /. pygmceus and I. hardwickii, if it inhabits 

 the area. 



VOL. III. E 



