NOTES, 229 



the upper part of the breast, but none of the breast feathers 

 themselves in adult malabarica are ever pure white. On the 

 other hand in blythi, not only in adults, but in all fairly 

 fully plumaged birds, the whole of the breast feathers are as 

 pure white as th6 throat, and it is this whiteness of the entire 

 breast in adults which constitutes the distinguishing charcteristic 

 of the species. The white head will, no doubt, often suffice 

 to separate blythi, but malabarica occur, though these are no 

 doubt the exception, with just as white heads and the real 

 diagnosis of the species consists in the white breast. 



Of the distinctness of the adults there can be no doubt ; nor 

 when the whiteness of the breast is sufficiently attended to, can 

 there be any difficulty in separating the adults of the two 

 species. The quite young birds are, as far as I can judge, in- 

 separable ; but malabarica, although when it first leaves the nest 

 it is entirely sordid white underneath, soon begins to acquire 

 some slight tinge of colour on the breast (and abdomen,) and 

 directly this is the case it is separable from the young of blythi. 



But three-quarter grown specimens of blythi are in this res- 

 pect apparently quite inseparable from some specimens of a like 

 age of nemoricola, (which often have the breasts quite white,) 

 when these, as is not unfrequently the case, especially in the 

 females, show no white on the wing. When they show white on 

 the wing they are of course at once separable, but when this 

 is not the case, the birds are only to be separated by the almost 

 entire absence, on the rump and upper tail-coverts of blythi, 

 of the fulvous or rufous tinge which is almost always observable 

 on those parts in birds of that age of nemoricola. 



I may add that if I doubted the authenticity of this species it 

 is due to Jerdon having put forward specific characteristics, 

 every one of which are invalid and having ignored the only 

 valid one. He says (Must. Ind. Orn.) :— 



" It differs from the common Grey-headed Mynah in being 

 larger in all its dimensions, in the colour of the head and neck, 

 in the primaries not being tipped with grey, and in some other 

 slight points." 



As a matter of fact, it is not larger than malabarica. The 

 wings vary, as in that species, from about 3'75 to nearly 4*2, 

 according to age and sex. In the colour of the head and 

 neck it can be matched by many specimens of malabarica, and 

 the primaries in the very finest adults, such as one kindly 

 lent me to look at by Mr. Laird, are quite as conspicuously 

 tipped with grey as those of malabarica. 



The real characteristic difference of the species consists in 

 its white breast, and it should be called, henceforth, the White- 

 breasted Tree Mynah. 



