IN JERDON OR STRAY FEATHERS. 409 



679 bis.— Podoces humilis, Hume. 



Description. — The bill, legs, and feet are black ; the fore- 

 head, lores, and an indistinct streak over the forepart of the 

 eye fulvous white ; a dusky line through the lores to the eye ; 

 front, top, and back of the head, back, scapulars, and rump, 

 a dull earthy brown, very faintly rufescent on the head ; a 

 broad yellowish white patch upon the nape ; the four central 

 tail feathers blackish brown, tipped and margined paler ; 

 lateral tail-feathers white, tipped and margined on their exterior 

 webs with dingy fulvous ; wings brown ; the quills slightly 

 darker brown, narrowly margined and tipped with paler brown ; 

 chin, cheeks, and ear-coverts, and entire lower parts, dingy 

 fulvous white ; the ear-coverts slightly more tinged with 

 fulvous or pale fulvous brown and silky. 



The female has more of a rufescent tinge on the back and 

 scapulars than the male, and has the quills a darker hair 

 brown ; the tertiaries and some of the secondaries more distinctly 

 margined with a pale rufescent brown. In both sexes the 

 bastard wing appears to be a dark hair brown. 



It will be noticed that the female is smaller in most of her 

 dimensions, and has the bill conspicuously shorter. — Hume, 

 " Lahore to Yarkand." 



689 quint.— Sturnia senex, Tern. 



It is assumed that this species, briefly described as below by 

 Bonaparte, as from Bengal, is really the Ceylon species. Bona- 

 parte says : — 



" Back brownish ; wings and tail bronzy black, (i.e., black with 

 a greenish metallic lustre) ; crown grey ; below dull ashy white." 



It is not common to get this species with the head entirely 

 grey, though this is the typical plumage. Layard re-described 

 the Ceylou bird under the name of albofrontala, thus : — 



11 Length about 8 inches ; of closed wing, 4*5 ; tail, 3 ; bill to 

 end of gape, 1*17 j tarsi, 1. General colour of back, tail and 



