ISO ON AN OVERLOOKED SPECIES OF REGULOIDES. 



In the summer, these little birds lose the yellow, and often 

 the green colour, very much indeed. It does not take long for 

 a yellow supercilium to fade to dull white. To be described and 

 compared correctly, all these birds should be dealt with in 

 early autumnal plumage. Those of brightest plumage are the 

 young in their first plumage. Most of us know that the Wil- 

 low Wren, after its first moult, is never so yellow again ; in 

 fact it can only be called a yellow bird before the moult. 



I have shot hundreds of Reguloides in the plains of the North- 

 West, but I never once obtained one answering to Mr. Dresser's 

 description, except so much of it as refers to my bird. Anything 

 like the fine Shillong birds I never saw there. I have also look- 

 ed over the collections of friends from the North- West, but all 

 were what I shall distinguish as the brown-headed bird. Take 

 the head of Phylloscopus rufus (P. collybitd) or of P. tristis, and 

 you have a head not unlike that of our North-West Reguloides^ 

 except that these have no coronal streak. The eyebrow and cheek 

 or side of face are not those of Reguloides superciliosus, the Shil- 

 long and Sikhim bird. The original description of the bird is :— ■ 



"61. Yellow-browed Warbler. 



Description. — Above, greenish ; beneath, pale coloured ; on the 

 crown of the head a pale streak ; over the eye a stripe of 

 yellow. Inhabits Russia. " * 



" Yellow-browed Warbler, Lath. Syn., II, p. 409, n. 16. 

 Habitat in Russia. Penant : From Gr. F. Gmelin's sy sterna 

 naturse, Lepsice, 1788, page 975. 



This description suits the Sikhim and Shillong bird, also 

 Mr. Dresser's Russian birds and those of Lower Bengal, but 

 it does not suit the brown-headed bird of the North-West in 

 any stage, from September to June. I have a couple of birds 

 shot near Calcutta by myself in January last, and it is very 

 easy to see that they are identical with the fine Shillong 

 examples, though a good deal faded. But these birds vary 

 much in brilliancy even in new feather. 



I shall now briefly note the points of difference : — ■ 



1. The supercilium, lemon coloured or yellow in one, (supev- 

 ciliosus,) and brownish white or pale rufous buff in the other. 

 In each case the supercilium would fade to what Mr. Dresser 

 calls dirty white. 



2. Greenish white cheeks, or sides of face more or less 

 tinged with yellow (in superciliosus) against the brownish cheek 

 of the other bird. In each case the cheek is minutely mottled 



" * Mr. Penant : From " A General Synopsis of Birds," by John Latham, M.D., Vol. 

 II, part 2nd, page 459. On this is founded Gmelin's Motacilla superciliosa ; thus 

 described : 120 — Motacilla superciliosa. M. supra vireacens, subtus palida, verticis stria 

 pallida, auperciliis flavis." 



