166 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



irides opalescent white, other young birds had them reddish 

 brown. 



An excessively narrow white line bounds the upper margin 

 of the bare orbital space, and is more or less apparent on the 

 lower margin also ; the entire top of the head dark grey, with 

 more or less of a green lustre ; the chin white, greyish white, or 

 grey; a stripe from the base of the upper mandible below the or- 

 bital space over the greater part of the ear-coverts, and joining 

 the grey of the occiput behind the orbital space, a purer grey ; the 

 entire upper parts from the nape, dark glossy metallic green, with 

 more or less of a blue lustre on the quills, especially on their 

 inner webs, and all the feathers of the tail tipped for from 2*5 to 

 4 inches, it varies a good deal in different specimens, with deep 

 maroon. Throat, breast, abdomen and lower halves of sides of the 

 neck deep chestnut; lower abdomen and tibial plumes 

 dusky ; the former fringed with dull maroon, the latter with 

 green reflections; the lower tail-coverts dull maroon ; lower 

 wing-coverts glossy green, a little mingled with maroon chestnut. 



Very young birds are somewhat duller colored, have the 

 orbital pace paler, no red on the bill, and the whole of the two, 

 in one specimen four, central tail feathers, uniform glossy metallic 

 green. As one of our specimens has all four of the central 

 feathers like this, and two others only two, it is not impossible 

 that other young ones may have all the tail feathers like this, 

 and if so, such a specimen may have been the foundation of 

 Verreaux's P. aneicaudus (Mag. deZool., 1855, 357) as indeed 

 has been suggested long ago by Stoliczka. 



In some specimens, in other respects apparently adult, with 

 the full-sized broad tail feathers (the young always have these 

 narrower), the maroon on the central tail feathers is reduced to 

 a mere spot on both webs near the tips ; but we have not yet 

 met with a perfect adult with the red fully developed on the 

 bill, in which the whole of the central tail feathers were green. 



216 quat. —"Rhmortha, chlorophaea, Raffl. (12). 



Lemyne ; Yea ; Tavoy ; Thayetckoung ; Tenasserim Town ; Palaw-ton-ton ; 

 Eankasoon. 



Confined to the southern three-fourths of the southern half of 

 the province. 



[This species ranges as far north at any rate as Lemyne, a 

 village about a day's march north of Yea, but is rare till you get 

 further south, and even there is nowhere very common. By 

 preference, it frequents the densest parts of the evergreen forests, 

 and cane-brakes and densest of scrubby jungle. In all its habits 

 it resembles Rhopoctytes, but has quite a different note, a peculiar 

 cat-like mew (not the chuckle of the others), which it utters at 

 short intervals as it threads its way through the tangled foliage. 



