NOTES. 457 



Well, in the first place, the specimen when Blyth received it 

 30 years ago, was, he notes, in bad order, and naturally the lapse 

 of time has not improved its condition ; the entire tail is gone, 

 and with it all the lower tail-coverts, but one tiny tuft, which is 

 white, now yellowish and sullied. Most of the primaries 

 of one wing are mutilated ; the feathers all about the base of 

 both mandibles have disappeared. 



Then the bird originally was a young one — this is apparent 

 from traces of pale tips to the feathers of the mantle. 



Bhyth believed that the specimen had come from the West 

 Coast of Africa, but the donor, Mr. Templeton, was not certain. 



Looking to all that remains of the specimen, I have no doubt 

 that it is a young bird of P. alleni, Thompson, and though 

 it is rather smaller than adults, and has the frontal shield skin 

 undeveloped, and the colour of the plumage, especially of the 

 lower parts, very much duller, this is only what might be looked 

 for in a young bird ; and as regards shape of bill, shape and 

 position of nostril, size and shape and scutellatiou of legs, feet 

 and claws, the correspondence is exact. 



I cannot find (though I may have done so) that I have ever 

 noted in Stray Feathers, that, as was long ago pointed out 

 by Blyth and others, Jerdon's No. 588. — Henicurus nigrifrons, 

 Ilodgs, is nothing but the young of his No. 587 — Henicurus 

 scouleri, Vigors. 



It has been stated that Vigors, when he described Trocha- 

 lopleron variegatum, described the species with the grey and 

 black wings and tail which I described as T. simile, {vide Ibis, 

 1871, 406, Lahore to Yarkand, 193, pi. VII., and S. F., III., 

 407) and not the species with bright yellow in these parts, and 

 that therefore it is this latter that requires a new name. 



Such, however, is not the case, deferring to Gould's figure, 

 taken from Vigor's type, it will be seen that this was of the 

 ordinary Central Himalayan type, such as we alone get about 

 Simla with the yellow in wings and tail, and not at all the bird 

 of the extreme North- West, which I named and figured. 



I have no doubt that both are good species as species o-o. 

 At their head-quarters, each is perfectly true to type without 

 any admixture of the other, and these their head-quarters are 

 widely separated. 



Doubtless other more or less distinct, and perhaps interme- 

 diate forms occur in the intermediate country, but so lono- as 

 Thamnobia cambaiensis and fulicata, Grocopus chlorigaster, 

 phcenicopterus and viridifrons, &Q. } &c, are maintained, we must, 



