150 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



The shafts of the feathers of the head are black or blackish, 

 spine-like and shining- ; the chin and throat are pale rufescent 

 brown or rufous fawn ; the ear-coverts and sides of the head some- 

 times like the throat, but rustier, sometimes brown like the crown, 

 but then more or less finely pencilled and intermingled with pale 

 rufescent ; the breast, abdomen, vent and lower tail-coverts are 

 silky yellowish white, with a more or less conspicuous tinge of 

 pale primrose down the middle and on the sides of the abdo- 

 men, as also generally on the upper breast ; the sides are slaty 

 grey ; the tibial plumes dark brown, more or less fringed at the 

 tips with pale greenish yellow; sometimes there is a tinge of 

 yellow in the middle of the throat. 



I don't think these birds are Barbets at all. Setting aside 

 their notes and habits, the peculiar pinched-up culmen, remind- 

 ing one of that of Machceramphus alcinus, is altogether unbarbet- 

 like„ I have an idea that they are near Indicator. 



191. — Megalsema grandis, Gould, (marshallorum, 

 tiwinh. virens apud, Jerd.) 



Obtained in the Karen Hills by Ramsay. Elsewhere we 

 only met with the true virens, the Chinese race. I carefully 

 compared all our specimens with Chinese ones. 



191 bis. — Megalaema virens, Bodd. (4). 



Kollicloo ; Kyouk-nyat ; Thengauee Sakan. 



Confined to the northern and central sections of the main 

 Tenasserim range, ascending to the summit of even Mooleyit. 



[I often heard this bird in the hills to the north of Pahpoon, 

 and shot one specimen near Kollidoo at an elevation of about 

 5,000 feet, and another at Kyouk-nyat on the banks of the 

 Salween in amongst the hills. Again I met with it at Mooleyit. 

 It frequents the higher forest trees, and has the same wailing 

 cry of pio-pio-pio, as the nearly allied Himalayan species. 



To judge from the numbers I heard they did not appear to 

 be rare, but the four I obtained were the only ones that I 

 actually saw. — W. D.] 



The Tenasserim hill specimens (and the bird never occurs in 

 the plains) differ uniformly from the Himalayan Megalcema 

 grandis, Gould nee. Gm., marshallorum, Sw T inh., by having the 

 entire head a dull greenish blue, instead of a violet blue, and in 

 wanting entirely in some specimens, and almost entirely in 

 others, the yellow striation of the feathers of the nape. They 

 are identical with Chinese specimens with which I have carefully 

 compared them. 



