REMARKS ON THE GENUS SUYA. 5 



Some specimens in these stages are almost undistinguishable 

 on the lower surface from super ciliaris, but the sides and flanks 

 are never quite the clear rufous buff of this latter, but have always 

 a certain intermixture of an olive tinge, though less than in atro- 

 gularis; and the lores and feathers immediately behind the eve 

 are never so dark as in superciliaris. The upper surface of course 

 differs toto ccelo, for whenever and so long as the white superci- 

 lium continues in khasiana, the rich rufous of the cap is as dis- 

 tinct as possible, from the olive shaded with dusky, (or washed 

 with black as Anderson calls it) of superciliaris. It is to 

 some stages of atrogularis that the upper surface of this latter 

 approaches, and so closely, that with the birds held back upper- 

 most by the heads with finger and thumb, so as to hide lores, 

 ear-coverts and supercilia, they cannot possibly be distin- 

 guished. 



In a word, superciliaris in its upper surface is undistinguish- 

 able from one stage of atrogularis ; in its lower surface, it is 

 barely separable from one of khasiana. 



No doubt, superciliaris will be found in breeding plumage, 

 ■with black chin and throat, dusky head and no supercilium, 

 and duskier back ; and again, in the non-breeding plumage, 

 "with cap and back uniform pure olive brown, like atrogu- 

 laris. In the non-breeding plumage its white supercilium 

 will separate it from this, and in this and the breeding plumage 

 also, I should expect, the clear pure buff of the flanks and sides 

 would suffice to distinguish it. 



Then we have Suya eryt/iropleura, which I have never seen. 

 The dimensions and the description of the whole upper and the 

 greater part of the lower surface applies admirably to some 

 stages of khasiana ; but in erythropleura, (i flanks, thigh-coverts 

 and under tail-coverts are bright ferruginous."" Now, if these 

 words are correctly applied, this must be a distinct species. 



In no single specimen (out of more than 50) of khasiana, 

 killed from April to December, can the flanks, by any possibility, 

 be correctly styled " bright ferruginous ;" at brightest they are 

 rufous or fulvous huff, slightly intermingled with olive, (much 

 more so of course in breeding plumage.) With this exception, 

 the description tallies perfectly ; but, as we have already seen, 

 this difference in the color of the flanks is in this little sub- 

 group important. 



Most probably if erythropleura is distinct, we shall here- 

 after find it in breeding plumage, with no supercilium and 

 with black chin and throat, and we shall meet with specimens 

 of it exhibiting faint blackish stria? on the breast, as in corre- 

 sponding stages of atrogularis, khasiana^ and (if, as I believe, 

 distinct from the former) superciliaris. 



