148 RECENTLY-DESCRIBED SPECIES. 



with black ; white on chin and throat ; some of the feathers 

 on the latter crossed by a V-shaped dark line, but they only 

 extend to the upper breast, this being covered by feathers 

 having large rounded white centres, bounded on the terminal 

 margin by a narrow dark line and fringed with chestnut; 

 towards the abdomen and flanks the white marks become 

 narrow and lengthened. The wing is unspotted, but con- 

 spicuous white feathers margined with black are mingled with 

 the scapulars, and there is a well-marked nuchal collar, each 

 feather crossed by a narrow black line edged terminally by 

 another ; there is a slight mottling of dull black on the 

 primaries and secondaries and lower back ; the tail is similarly 

 mottled and crossed by seven pale clear rufous bands ; the outer 

 penultimate tail feather has five distinct white bars on the outer 

 web, the very short outermost feather has a terminal whitish 

 spot. Wing, 5'25; tail, 5'5 ; tarsus, 6; bill at front, 0'6 ; 

 breadth at gape, 1*05 ; mid-toe and claw, 075. 



" The long frontal plumes are black, rufous at the base. 



" This bird is, I think, nearest to B. javensis, B. ajjinis 

 apparently not having any white in front of the eye. 



" On my submitting this paper and the specimen to Lord 

 Tweeddale he thus wrote to me : " This Naga Hill example 

 of the genus Batraehostomus " without doubt belongs to the 

 B. javensis (Horsf. ex Java). I have critically compared the 

 two and cannot detect any difference. It may turn out to be 

 Mr. Hume's B. castaneus, in which case B. hodgsoni will be- 

 come a synonym of B. javensis. It is a large form of B. aijinis, 

 but the white on the throat seems to extend higher up, as it 

 does in the Javan species, and in B. cornutus of Sumatra 

 and Borneo/' Lord Tweeddale does not concur with me regard- 

 ing the white mark in front of the eye, and says, a it is just 

 as strongly marked in my examples of B. ajjinis" — God.-Aust., 

 J. A. S.B., XLVII, jtf.lL, 13, 1868. 



[This description does not by any means correspond well with 

 the specimens which I possess of B. castaneus, which I assume 

 to be the rufous stage of B. hodgsoni, though this is still an open 

 question. Not one of my specimens, for instance, has any trace 

 even of the white bars referred to on the penultimate tail 

 feathers. Still so little is as yet known of the changes of 

 plumage in these Batrachostomi that, for the present, until I 

 can examine the specimen from Assam, I cannot assert that 

 B. javanensis may not be the same as B. castaneus. The latter 

 is quite distinct from both ajjinis and stellatus, (javanensis apud 

 Bly. nee. Horsf.), but it may be identical with true javanensis, of 

 which I have no specimens. — Ed., S. F.] 



