FURTHER ADDITIONS TO THE SINDH AVIFAUNA. 121 



• The following is Dresser's detailed description of the species :— 

 " Adult male. — Head and neck glossy dark umber-brown ; 

 feathers on the neck white at the base ; upper and under parts 

 generally jet black with a steely violet gloss ; the under parts 

 intermixed here and there with a few dark umber-brown 

 feathers ; wings and tail glossy black, with a violet-blue gloss ; 

 bill black ; legs black, with a brownish tinge ; iris dark brown. 

 Total length about 23 inches ; culmen, 2 "9; wing, 15*5; tail, 

 8-6 ; tarsus, 2*9 ; middle toe, 2*2. 

 Female. — Similar to the male." 



720 quat.— Emberiza miliaria, Zin. 



This is another species which I have not yet received from 

 Beloochistan. It occurs all over Europe, North-Eastern Africa, 

 Palestine, Turkestan, and De Filippi recorded it as common 

 in the north-west of Persia, but it has not hitherto been pro- 

 cured further east than at Shiraz and Abadeb, both in about 

 53° East Long. Its present capture at Dowlutpore, if authen- 

 tic, extends its range nearly 15° to the east. 



I have compared the Sindh specimen with European ones ; 

 it is quite as dark as most of the English birds ; it only differs 

 in appearing to have the dark spots of the sides and base of 

 the throat darker and more confluent than any of the European 

 specimens. It measures : — 



Length, 7 '5 inches; tail, 3*3 ; wing, 3*9; tarsus, TO; bill 

 from gape, 0'6. 



The bird is such a well known European one, that it is un- 

 necessary to do more here than reproduce Mr. Dresser's descrip- 

 tion of the species : — 



"Male in spring plumage. — Above greyish brown, the 

 feathers blackish down the centre as in a Lark, those on the 

 crown more narrowly centred ; the rump almost entirely 

 greyish brown, with very faint indications of central black 

 markings ; scapulars and wing-coverts like the back ; the median 

 coverts tipped with white, and also slightly tinged with rufous ; 

 the greater coverts externally edged with fulvous; quills 

 blackish brown, externally margined with buffy white ; the 

 secondaries far more broadly, these latter being also slightly 

 tinged with rufous ; tail rather paler brown, with edges and tips 

 of buffy white ; feathers in front of the eye, and an indistinct 

 eyebrow buffy white, with very tiny longitudinal markings of 

 dark brown ; ear-coverts dark brown, with narrow streaks of 

 black ; under surface of the body creamy white ; the throat 

 and fore part of the chest streaked with small spots of blackish 

 brown these spots being very tiny on the throat, where they 

 collect thickly together on the malar line, forming a kind of 



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