322 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



I do not think Dr. Jerdon's description is quite sufficiently 

 full ; an apparently adult male, caught in the Bay of Bengal, 

 had the forehead, crown, and occiput white. Lores, cheeks, ear- 

 coverts, and nape a sort of mouse brown ; a blackish brown line 

 ran round the greater portion of the eye, The whole of the 

 rest of the plumage, above and below, was a rather deep hair 

 brown, deepest on the quills and deepest of all on the outer 

 web of the first primary, which was almost black. Bill black ; 

 irides brown ; legs and feet dingy brownish orange or red. 



Length, 11; wing, 8*5; bill, 1'6 ; tarsus, 0'75; mid toe 

 and claw, 1*4. 



This bird is clearly not identical, it seems to me, with 

 A. leucocapillus, Gould, which has the bill 2 to 2*25. The 

 feet brownish black, the lores black, and the whole plumage 

 sooty black, and of which I have a fine specimen from the 

 northern portion of the Indian Ocean and which must be 

 included in our Indian Avifauna. 



996.— Phaeton rubricauda, JBodd, (0.) 



Blyth mentions the receipt of a specimen of this species 

 which he calls aether eus from the Nicobars. We neither 

 obtained nor saw this species, but it occurs I know in the Bay of 

 Bengal, although despite what Blyth says I believe that it is 

 less common in our Indian waters than either of the other two 

 species. 



I suppose this bird varies a good deal in plumage ; a very 

 fine male killed in the Bay of Bengal diffei-s toto ceelo in mea- 

 surements and description from those given in Dr. Jerdon. 



Length, 33 ; tail, 17*5; wing, 13*8; bill, at front, 2*6; from 

 gape, 33 ; height at front, 0'7 ; tarsus, 1*2 ; mid toe and claw, 

 2 1. This bird is nearly twice as bulky as candidus. Then the 

 bill was pale yellow and the feet of the same type as in 

 candidus, viz., legs, mid toe, and upper portion of front toes olive 

 yellow, rest of foot and claws black. Possibly the colour of 

 the bill may vary at different seasons. 



The whole plumage was silky white without a shade of rosy, 

 though the specimen was fresh. There was a broad black mark 

 in front of and running through the eye, and extending about 

 ^ of an inch behind it. The primaries conspicuously black 

 shafted on their upper surface. Some of the tertiaries black 

 shafted and with conspicuous broad blackish grey central stripes. 

 A few of the flank feathers with broad iron grey, or in some 

 greyish black, central stripes. Tail feathers conspicuously blnck 

 shafted; the narrow webs of the terminal 14*5 inches of the 

 two elongated central tail feathers bright red. 



