IN JERDON OR STRAY FEATHERS. 451 



color ; the greater .coverts of the secondaries are mostly pure 

 white, those only near the primaries tinged at the tips with 

 rather pale buffy brown. 



In a younger stage still the whole upper surface of the bird, 

 in fact the whole bird as seen swimming in the water, 

 appears a dull earthy brown, but I never succeeded in bagging 

 a specimen in this stage, though I have seen several such in 

 November. These birds come in October and leave in March; 

 they are not rare in large pieces of water in Oudh, the North- 

 Western Provinces and the Punjab, but in Sindh and all 

 along the Mekran Coast they are the Pelican. I observed 

 incredible numbers in the Indus, and in every large inland lake ; 

 in the Kurachee harbour, and in every bay along the coast thence 

 to Gwader. In the middle of February they had all assumed 

 the deep orange pouch, and the straw colored breast patch. — 

 Hume, a Monogr. Gen. Pelicanus." 



ate*. 



I suspect that Rallina telmatophila, nobis, ante. p. 142, 

 is really Rallies super ciliaris, Eyton. — A. and M. N. H., XVI 

 230, 1845. 



This has been universally identified with Porzana cinerea, 

 which also occurs in the Malay Peninsula, but reading carefully 

 Eyton's description, it is certain that this identification is 

 wrong, and very probable I think that he intended to describe 

 the bird I named telmatophila. His original description is as 

 follows : — " Rallus super ciliaris. — R. olivaceo brunneus, gula alba, 

 striga superciliari rufo, snbtus strigis atris et albis transversis 

 alternate notatis, pedibus rostroque viridibus. 



Long. tot. 9f unc. ; tarsi, l£ unc. ; ros. fron., T V unc.'" 



The dimension of the bill is of course absurd, andjthe whole 

 lower parts are not banded, only the parts below the breast, but 

 on the whole the description seems to me to apply fairly well, 

 and 1 am utterly at a loss to understand how an authority so 

 careful as Salvadori — not to mention many others who are nei- 

 ther careful nor authorities — could identify a bird thus described 

 with cinerea. 



Preferring to my supposed new species Iole terricolor, S. F., 

 VII, 141, I feel bound to suggest the possibility that has oc- 

 curred to me that this may be one stage of the plumage of Iole 

 cinerea. Hay. Bly., J. A. S. B.,XIV, 573, 1845, fronTMalacca. 



