144 RECENTLY-DESCRIBED SPECIES. 



" This bird is close to Staphidea torqueola, Swinh., but in that 

 species the chestnut commences at the base of the lower man- 

 dible, passes under the eye, and round the nape in a broad band 

 of chestnut brown, and the last three tertiaries are margined 

 white on inner web. This is absent in the Assam bird, ob- 

 tained by Mr. M. J. Ogle near Sadya and Brahmakhend, East- 

 ern Assam. 



u In my note book I find that I obtained one example in tbe 

 Dikrang valley, Dafla bills, which I shot at camp No 9, but 

 this was subsequently lost somehow or other, and therefore I 

 did not bring it in the list of birds from the Dafla hills, published 

 in the Journal, Asiatic Society of Bengal." — A fy M. N. H., 

 December 1877, p. 519. 



" Can this be Ixulus striates, Blyth ? Blandford, in J. A. S. B., 

 1872, p. 166, says the Darjeeling bird is the same as the Te- 

 nasserim type in the Calcutta Museum, but mentions that it has 

 a rufous supercilium, which none of my specimens possess. 



" Since writing the above, I have received from Mr. W. 

 Blandford, in a letter from Calcutta, in reply to some questions 

 I wrote to him regarding this species, Ix. striatus, some remarks 

 which I now quote : "I have two specimens of the Sikhim 

 bird. I have recompared them with the type from Tenasserim, 

 and I cannot understand how I can have identified the two. The 

 Tenasserim bird is, as Blyth describes it, greyish brown (ashy 

 brown according to Tickell) ; the cap may have been a trifle 

 darker, but very little, not so distinct I should say as in the 

 Sikhim bird, and the white shafts are far more conspicuous in 

 the Tenasserim type. Above all the bill is much larger in the 

 latter, the difference is so marked that I think that I must have 

 compared a Sikhim specimen differing from those I have now. 

 The cheek patch is distinct, but faint. The specimen from 

 Sikhim, (la. rufigenis, Hume) which I now have, the rufous 

 supercilium is only indicated posteriorly." This last title was 

 given to the Sikhim bird by Mr. A. 0. Hume in Stray Feathers, 

 Vol. V., p. 108. Mr. Blanford has now followed up his letter by 

 sending me two specimens from Mr. Mandellr's collection of 

 this Darjeeling form, and on comparison I found that it is 

 quite distinct from plumbeiceps. This last has the head of a 

 decided ash grey colour, and the feathers are more lengthened 

 behind, so as to give a subcrested appearance ; bill shorter 

 and deeper ; legs stouter, altogether a larger bird. In one 

 specimen from Darjeeling, there is an extension shewn off the 

 rufous of the ear-coverts round the nape, of which there is not 

 a trace in the Sadiya examples. These are the dimensions of 

 rufigenis. Wing, 2*45 ; tarsus, 0'6 ; bill at front, 0'47. 



