NOTES ON SIKHIM BIRDS. 233 



with this and the following species, as is also evident from their 

 vernacular names for it. 



0. 647. Oyanecula SUecica.— The outer tail feathers of 

 the female have a large triangular white tip. 



0. 672. Merula albOCincta.—" The white-collared ouzel" 

 eight. My specimens support the view that these merge into one. 

 The 7nales (five) agree neither with M. alhocincta nor with 31. castanea. 

 Four of the males are black, except forehead and crown, and in three 

 also the occiput, which are ashy-grey with darker centres and very 

 conspicuously lighter than back. None of them have chestnut any- 

 where — except one has obscure margin of the feathers of lower back 

 and rump and under wing coverts dingy rufous. Scully, writing 

 from Nepal, notes that all of his four specimens are typical M. albocincta, 

 and he saw no M. castanea. 



These do not agree well with Gates' descrijition of male iHf. albocincta, 

 yet they belong to this species rather than 31, casta^iea. The crown 

 and back of the males are not of the same colour. All of the males, 

 especially these from January to May, have greyish foreheads and 

 crown owing to the feathers being broadly edged with ashy. The 

 back and rump are wholly black except in one, a September bird, — 

 the feathers of these regions are narrowly margined with whitish- 

 rufous, and in all the lower, most of the upper, tail coverts are edged 

 with whitish, and in the females these featliers have whitish shafts. 



0. 698. Oreocincla dauma.— Seven specimens. One 

 [Karung, Tista valley (Ijelow Yangang), May, 1891] has the ground- 

 colour of lower plumage ochraceous-buff, and otherwise closely resem- 

 bles Oreocincla imbrieata of Ceylon, and other two males have chin, 

 throat, breast, and under tail coverts oclu-aceous, while the femalas 

 have these parts relatively whiter. 



0. 704 and 705. Zoothera monticola, Z. marginata. 



— One of each — 1 male, Chowbanjan, April, 1891; 1 male, February, 

 1892. 



In addition to the dark margination of the feathers and its shorter 

 wing and smaller size, its lores and cheeks are pale mottled grey and 

 ear coverts with conspicuously pale grey shafts, the blackish tips con- 

 trasting against the whitish subternal bands of the feathers of the side 

 of the neck. Its greater and medium wing coverts are more conspi- 

 cuously tipped with ochraceous than is Z. monticola, and in neither can 

 the chin, throat, breast, and abdomen be said to be white — in 

 Z, marginata the chin and throat are ashy grey and in Z. monticola 

 ochraceous : on the breast and upper part of abdomen the dark brown 

 tints predominate. 



0. 831. Motacilla maderaspatensis.— The chin, upper 



throat and an infra- mandibular streak, of a November male, are white, 

 and the back is blackish-ashy. 



