ON TWO SPECIES OF BATRACHOSTOMUS. 349 



Hodgsoni. At the same time it must be noted that Ototlirix 

 Hodgsoni has the tarsus bare ; Hodgson specially notes " tarsi 

 less than mid toe, nearly nude and covered in front with large 

 unbroken scales," and this is the fact. Now in our Darjeeling 

 birds the tarsus is bare as in Otothrix ; on the other hand, the 

 bill is considerably larger than iD that species, and the upper 

 mandible everywhere distinctly overlaps the lower mandible. 



As regards size, our Darjeeling birds, which I have provision- 

 ally to give them " a local habitation and a name" christened 

 " castaneus," are perhaps somewhat larger as a whole than 

 Otothrix Hodgsoni (as will be seen from the subjoined dimensions), 

 and although their bills project more than twice as much beyond 

 the frontal feathers they are considerably narrower at the gape. 

 Otothrix Hodgsoni. Batrachostomus. castaneus. 



I may note that the dimensions of the Otothrix Hodgsoni are 

 those of Mr. Hodgson, taken in the flesh from the very female 

 which served^ I believe, as type to Mr. Gray when he charac- 

 terised the genus and species. P. Z. S., 1859, p. 101. 



Of the four specimens of castaneus, all measured, I regret to 

 say, in the dried skin, three are adults in the chesnut plumage (one 

 lent me by Mr. Mandelli) and the fourth is a young bird in a 

 rufous brown, black, and buff stage, not very dissimilar to that 

 of Otothrix Hodgsoni as figured by Mr. Gray loc. cit. 



Now despite the great difference in the shape and size of the 

 bill, the somewhat larger size of the bird as a Avhole, and the 

 total difference in the plumage of the adults which I shall des- 

 cribe at length further on, it has occurred to me, especially as 

 the young approches Otothrix in plumage, that ray castaneus 

 might possibly be the male of Otothrix Hodgsoni. Mr. Hod Ol- 

 son's bird was certainly an adult female by dissection and its 

 young was similar, but the sex of my four specimens, all obtained 

 not very far from where Mr. Hodgson got his, was unfortunately 

 not recorded satisfactorily, though Mr. William Masson who 

 shot two of them for me noted one as a female with a note of 

 interrogation after it. 



