BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



I found that they affected the top of some large tree 

 (usually a dead one) rising higher than its neighbours, and 

 from this view-commanding perch they took longer or shorter 

 flights, after insects apparently, returning agaiu aud again to the 

 same perch, even after one or more of their number (when 

 several were together) had been shot. Their flight is very 

 rapid, partly sailing and partly flapping. The stomachs of those 

 I killed Contained, as a rule, insects, dragon flies, beetles, grass- 

 hoppers and the like, but in the stomach of one bird I found 

 feathers, (primaries and body feathers) evidently those of a 

 Prinia. During my residence in the southern portion of the 

 Provinces, Col. E. B. Sladen, the present Commissioner of 

 Arracan, shot a specimen of this species at Nga Beemah on the 

 Attaran River south-east of Moulmeiu. — W. D.] 



Although I do not say that it is necessary to separate them 

 specifically, yet, certainly, the Hill Tenasserim race of this 

 little Falconet is clearly distinguishable from the Himalayan 

 one. 



Any one could separate them, as a rule, at a glance. Both 

 frontal band and collar are wider, generally conspicuously 

 so ; the black ear patch is narrower and longer ; the white mark- 

 ings on the inner webs of the primaries are larger and more con- 

 fluent, and there is one constant difference, viz., that the white 

 spot, which forms the representative of the fifth bar on the 

 inner web of the outer tail feather, approaches much nearer the 

 point of the feather than in the Himalayan species. 



This latter distinction holds good in every one of over 60 

 Himalayan and 30 Pegu and Tenasserim specimens, but to take 

 only 42 specimens, the sexes of which have been ascertained 

 by dissection, the following is the distance by which the 

 last white spot falls short of the tip of the external tail 

 feather, 



in Himalayan ; and in 

 $s 0-89; 0-89; 0'93; 075; 



1-07; 0-82; 0-8; 0'8; 



0-68; 08; 1-1. 

 $s 077; 0-87; 0'6; 072; 



068; 062; 0*55, 0-85, 



0-8. 



Pegu fy Tenasserim specimens. 

 $s 0-43; 0-42; 0-42; 0'42 ; 



0-4, 0-43; 0-35/ 0-4; 043; 



0-4; 0-37. 

 ?« 0-4; 0-41 ; 0'46 ; 0'43 ; 



043; 0-37; 041; 0'45 ; 



0-43; 0-46; 0'5. 



Generally, too, the white barring on the inner webs of all the 

 lateral tail feathers is bolder and better marked in the Tenas- 

 serim birds. 



Lastly, in not one single one of these latter have we any 

 indication of the old adult plumage of the Himalayan bird, 

 {vide ante, S. ¥., V., p. 127.) In every single specimen, male 

 or female, the entire breast is pure white. 



