GEOCICHLA DISSIMILIS, BLYTH. 105 



and a quarter in spread of wing ; closed wing, four and a 

 half; tail, three and one-eight; bill to gape, an inch and one- 

 eight ; tarsi the same. Colour of the upper-parts plain olive- 

 brown in both sexes,* with ashy beneath the surface of the 

 feathers, tending a little to predominate about the rump ; 

 throat, middle of belly, and lower tail-coverts white; the 

 sides of the throat with dusky linear spots more or less 

 diffused, and some often appearing in the middle; breast 

 light olive-brown, with a few dusky spots, sometimes small 

 and triangular, sometimes larger and more linear; and the 

 flanks spotless olive-brown in the female, and perhaps in the 

 juvenescent male, but in the old male bright ferruginous, 

 spreading to the white medial line of the abdomen ; beak 

 dusky, with generally some intermixture of yellow ; and leo-s 

 bright yellowish-brown. As in the Geocichlce, the bill of a 

 fresh specimen of this species is usually much clotted with 

 mud ; and the bird, like them, is mostly seen on the ground, 

 hopping about among the underwood. It is not rare in 

 Lower Bengal during the cold season. Mr. Jerdon has 

 lately obtained it in the south, and it often occurs in collec- 

 tions from the Himalaya. f" 



It is quite clear from the above that Blyth/s supposed 

 mature male was either a female or a young male, and that 

 his eight or ten females were simply unicolor, as two of his survi- 

 ving types prove ; and indeed if female unicolor with the 

 yellowish olive tinge suffusing the breast and flanks be com- 

 pared with the adult female of what we are now agreed to 

 call dissimilis, it is easy to understand how the latter may 

 easily have been mistaken for the male of the former. 



However, there is sufficient in the description, especially 

 the words " have the whole under-parts from the breast 

 except the medial line of the belly and lower tail-coverts, 

 which are pure white, of the same bright ferruginous color 

 as G. citrina — " a statement absolutely correct of both the old 

 female and the young male of my tricolor, to show that Blyth 

 really had got hold of one specimen of dissimilis, and I am 

 therefore quite willing to suppress my own and adopt his 

 name, although his description included two species and 

 although all his originally catalogued types belong to another 

 species. 



* This again refers to female (or young male) unicolor and dissimilis. In both 

 species the adult males have a grey mantle, paler and bluer in the former, darker 

 and more iron grey in the latter. 



f This all refers to unicolor ; even in Sikkim, in all these years, and collecting 

 so excessively closely and on so large a scale as poor Mandelli did, he never obtained 

 any specimen of dissimilis. On the other hand it is common towards the head of 

 the Assam valley, during the cold season. 



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