THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 313 



of the feathers, the margins of which are marbled with dull 

 black and rufous. The whole back and wings are chesnut 

 rufous, studded with a multitude of black striae and zig-zags ; 

 the quills are an ashy black, their tips rusty red; the tail 

 feathers are bluish black ; the iris red ; the beak and feet yellow. 

 Total length, 16-5 ; the bill, at front, 2-2." 



Schlegel also gives two figures of this species in the Fauna 

 Japonica, and gives the following additional dimensions : — 



" Length, 19'7 ; wing, 1095 ; tail, 4*65; bill, at front, 1*65 ; 

 from the gape, 2*5 nearly ; tarsus, 2 -85 ; mid toe, without the nail, 

 1'73 j hind toe, - 83 ; tail slightly rounded; first quill, 063, and 

 third quill, 0*3 nearly, shorter than the second which is the 

 longest in the wing." 



Now the plumage of this species is very variable, and though 

 the figures given by Temminck and Schlegel leave me no 

 serious doubt that our birds belong to this present species, 

 I yet cannot say that either descriptions or figures adequately 

 represent any one of our three birds. 



A supposed adult male measured, wing, 10*3; tarsus; 2*3; 

 bill at front, 1*75. It has the forehead, crown, occiput and 

 nape, and the elongated pointed occipital crest, which is 

 fully three inches in length, a deep blackish brown exhibiting 

 in some lights a faint maroon tinge ; over the eyes there 

 is an ill-defined chesnut band ; the cheeks, sides of the 

 neck, and the whole back of neck, underneath the crest, are 

 bright chesnut ; the whole mantle is a dull chesnut, closely 

 freckled, vermicellated and irregularly but finely barred with 

 blackish brown ; the rump and upper tail coverts dull, dusky, slate 

 color ; tail uniform slatey black ; the primaries dingy black ; the 

 first three conspicuously tipped, and margined towards the tips 

 on the outer webs, with white or rufescent white, and a little 

 freckled and mottled inside the tippings with rufous or rufescent 

 white ; the greater coverts of these first three primaries black- 

 ish brown, broadly tipped with white, and here and there 

 tinged on the outer web with chesnut; the rest of the primaries 

 very broadly tipped with dull chesnut, these tips obscurely 

 margined with rufescent white, and freckled towards these 

 margins with dull blackish brown ; their greater coverts bright 

 chesnut, paling towards the tips, and with a narrow, subterminal, 

 freckled brown band ; secondaries similar, blackish brown, 

 freckled, towards the tips, most especially on the outer webs, 

 with dull chesnut ; visible portion of tertiaries and the whole 

 of the rest of the wing coverts, not already specially described, 

 similar to the back and scapulars, and above described as 



