NOTES. 293 



It will be seen that this species is distinguished at ouce by 

 its white belly and broad grey nuchal collar from both leuco- 

 lopkus and belangeri. 



This, I believe, is the first time that this species has been 

 properly described. Lord Walden merely indicated it. 



But while this species is certainly leucogaster of Walden, 

 it seems also possible that, as subsequently pointed out by 

 him, Ibis, 1867, 381, this is also Turdus diardi of Lesson — 

 Tr. d'Orn, 408. It is true that the brief description there 

 given — " cheeks black, head and neck white, mantle ashy, 

 wings bright rufous" — does not by any means suit our 

 bird well, but Lord Walden himself considered, after reading 

 M. Pucheran's detailed description (Arch, du Mus. VIL, p. 

 376, No. 37) of the type of Turdus diardi, that the two might 

 be the same. He pointed out, however that neither Pucheran 

 nor Lesson refer to any crest in diardi, which could scarcely 

 have escaped their notice. 



But he seems to have overlooked a most important point in 

 Lesson's diagnosis, " mantle ashy." I have not access to Puche- 

 ran's detailed description, and therefore I do not know whether 

 " mantle ashy" was a mistake of Lesson's or not. If not, then 

 leucogaster of Walden is clearly distinct. It is to be hoped that 

 some ornithologists at home, who have access either to the 

 type in the Paris museum, or to the Archives du Museum 

 (I have only the Nouvelles Archives') will set us right on this point, 

 and let us know whether diardi really has an ashy mantle. 



In the meantime we had better retain Lord Walden' s name 

 of leucogaster, which certainly applies to our bird. If diardi 

 has an ashy mantle, it is clearly distinct, as indeed we might 

 expect the Cochin-Chinese form to be ; if it has not, then it is 

 very doubtful whether the name founded on such a gross mis- 

 description ought to be allowed to stand. 



Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Dresser and other European writers all 

 unite Pica bottanensis, Deles, with Pica rustica, in which latter 

 I include, not only the European bird, but media, sericea, bactri- 

 ana, leucoptera, Sfc. 



In my humble opinion these excellent authorities can only 

 thus have united this well-characterized, though variable, 

 species with the very distinct Bhutanese and Tibetan form 

 (and by Tibetan I do not refer to Ladakh which people com- 

 monly call Tibet, but to Chinese Tibet lying north of Sikhim and 

 Bhutan) because they do not really know what bottanensis is. 



In the first place, P. bottanensis is to P. rustica what the raven 

 is to the carrion crow. It probably weighs half as much again, 

 and is very much larger than any specimen of rustica that I 



