34 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



see as well by day as by night. In the day it is very shy, and 

 when once it has been disturbed will seldom permit of a near 

 approach. The food consists apparently of insects, such as 

 large beetles, &c.; at any rate I never found the remains of 

 mammals, birds, fishes or reptiles in the stomachs I exa- 

 mined.— W. D.] 



74.— Scops pennatus, Eodgs. (4). 



Thoungsha, Gyne R. ; Amherst ; Mergui. 



Generally distributed throughout the better-wooded por- 

 tions of the province. 



[May not be rare as one often hears the note ; at Pahpoon, 

 and throughout the pine forests, and near Mooley it especially, 

 they went on calling all through the night, but they are very 

 difficult to obtain, and I know nothing of their habits. — W. D.] 



I first entered these birds as Scops stictonotus, Sharpe, Cat., 

 II., 54, his general remarks on the species applying extremely- 

 well. He says : " The general color is ashy brown above, with- 

 out any greyish shade ; the ear-coverts dusky grey; the collar 

 round the neck is very indistinct, and is represented by cer- 

 tain pale buff-colored bars or spots, without any appearance of 

 ■white whatsoever; on the back, however, are several very dis- 

 tinct spots and bars of the same pale buff color, giving a very 

 marked character to these peculiarities." 



Now this holds wonderfully true of some of the specimens, 

 but in one there are some pale white, not buff spots about 

 the neck, and Mr. Sharpe gives the wing at 5*5 to 5-75, and 

 none of my birds have the wing under 60, and, moreover, I 

 can match my specimens with examples of pennatus from the 

 Malabar Coast, Saugor, and Hazara and other places, in all of 

 which they are mixed up with more typical pennatus, and on 

 the whole I think it best to keep my specimens under this name. 

 I do not believe that they, at any rate, can be specifically 

 separated. 



I take this opportunity of noting that, while Scops rufipen- 

 nis, Sharpe, Cat., II., 60, is a just distinguishable race, and I 

 have five fairly typical examples before me, all from the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of Madras, it so runs into what I con- 

 sider typical pennatus, that it seems to me almost doubtful 

 whether it is rightly separable even as a sub-species. 



Two males of the present species from the banks of the 

 Gyne river, about 40 miles S. E. of Moulmein, measured as 

 follows : — 



Length, 7'27 ; expanse, 19-25 to 195 ; tail, 2-65"to 2'7 ; wing, 

 6-0 to 601 ; tarsus, 0'95 to 1-02 ; bill from gape, 0-8 to 07 ; 

 weight, 2*5 ozs. 



