IN JERDON OR STRAY FEATHERS. 405 



Length, 4*5 inches; of wing, 2*12; of tail, 2*25 ; the three 

 outer feathers graduated, the middle pair, 0'2 shorter than 

 the next ; bill to frontal plumes, 0*2 ; to gape, 042 ; tarsi, 

 0*58 of an inch. 



Hab. — Afghanistan (?) In the museum of the East India 

 Company. " Found in pairs, in the woods above Balu Chug-bur, 

 at 4,000 feet elevation. Irides straw colour.'" — Griffith, MSS. 

 Notes.— Moore, P. Z. S., 1854, 139. 



644 bis.— Parus griffithii, Bly. 



This species is founded on a drawing of a bird obtained by 

 the late Dr. Griffith, between Assam and Ava. With a near 

 affinity in colouring to P. xanthogenys and P. aplonotus* it is 

 at once distinguished by being crestless, and by the details of 

 its markings. Length of wing about 2'75 inches, and of tail 2'25 

 inches. Colour black, with the lores and sides of neck, the 

 rump, underparts, an occipital spot, and triangular terminal 

 drops on the dorsal feathers yellow; throat and foreneck 

 black ; tail considerably forked, and tipped with white ; also the 

 greater wing-coverts and the tertiaries, with the base and edge 

 of the primaries.— Blyth, J. A. S. B., 1847, 445. 



655 bis.— Accentor montanellus, Pall. 



I am inclined to believe that there may possibly be more than 

 one Hedge Sparrow of this type confounded under this name. 



* Aplonotus, really equals and has precedence of jerdoni, and though, strange to say, 

 Blyth himself later identified aplonotus with xanthogenys and re-named the former, 

 yet a perusal of the original description, J. A. S. B., XVI, 444, 1847, wherein the 

 bird is said to inhabit the mountains of Central India, leaves no doubt that this re- 

 naming was some oversight. Blyth's mistake, I fancy, arose thus : — First he got bold 

 of the Central Indian species, which be called xanthogenys ; then he got the Eastern 

 Himalayan form, and he thought that this must be the true xanthogenys, and then he 

 named the Central Indian bird aplonotus. Later be got Western Himalayan birds, 

 and found they were the true xanthogenys, and named the Eastern Himalayan form 

 spilonntus. He did not at the time recognize the difference between the Western 

 Himalayan and Central and Southern Indian forms, and so he reduced his aplonotus 

 to a synonym of xanthogenys. Later again he saw that the Central Indian species 

 was different, and forgetting apparently that it was to a specimen of this form and 

 not of the Western Himalayan race that he had already given the name aplonotus, 

 he re-named it jerdoni. The former name of course stands ; references as follows :— 



648. — ilACHLOLOPHUS APLONOTUS, Myth. 



J. A. S. B., XVI, 444, 1847.— S. F., VII, 405. 

 xanthogenys, Jerd Madr. Journ. XI, 7, J any. 



1840, et Blyth, 3. A. S. B., XI, 59, 1842 ; nee Vig. 

 jerdoni, Blyth, J. A. S. B., XXV, 445, 1856.— 



S. F., Ill, 492.— Gould B. of As. Pt. IX, pi. 10. 



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