lyO BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



Male. — Length, 4*25 to 4*62 ; expanse, 675 to 7 ; tail, 1*5 to 

 1-75 ; wing-, 2- to 2*12 ; tarsus, 0'62 to 0*75 ; bill from gape, 0'6 

 to 0-62 ; weight, 0-25 to 0'3 oz. 



Female. — Length, 4*25 to 4'3 ; expanse, 6"5 to 6*75 ; tail, 1*6 ; 

 wino-, 1-85 to 2*12 ; tarsus, 0'6 to 0'62 ; bill from gape, 0*55 to 

 0-6." 



The legs and feet are a dark brownish green or greenish 

 horny ; the feet sometimes paler ; the claws dirty green ; the bill 

 black, or dark horny brown, paler at the angle of the gonys ; 

 the gape yellowish ; the base sometimes reddish brown; the irides 

 in some dark brown, in others crimson lake. This, as in An- 

 threptes malaccensis, not dependent apparently either on sex 

 or age. 



234.— Arachnechthra asiatica, Lin. (17). 



(Tonghoo, Karennee, Earns.) Kyouknyat; Pahpoon; SnlweenR. ; Theinzeik ; 

 Wimpong ; Thoungsha Gryne K. j Kanee ; Moninenzeik ; Ngabeemah. ; Amherst ; 

 Lemyne. 



Confined to the northern and central portions of the pro- 

 vince, not ascending the hills or entering the thick forests. 



[This species occurs from Pahpoon to about Yea, but does not 

 apparently occur any where south of that place even as a strag- 

 gler. I have kept a special look-out for it, but the most southernly 

 point at which I saw it or obtained it, was Lemyne, about 

 one day's march north of Yea, so that we may, I think, safely 

 take the northern bank of the Yea river as its most southern 

 range. When it does occur it is found in gardens and culti- 

 vated ground, and in the uncultivated parts in places that are 

 only thinly wooded or quite bare, with the exception of a iew 

 bushes studded about. It appears to avoid entirely the more 

 densely-wooded portions of the country. As is well known 

 the male of this species in the non-breeding plumage is very 

 similar to the female, but has a dark stripe running down from 

 the chin to the lower abdomen. — W. D.] 



This pretty species has been rather hardly treated by us in 

 India of late years ; first I divided off the larger billed, more 

 brilliant colored eastern and southern birds as intermedia, and 

 more recently Mr. Blanford has separated the rather smaller 

 shorter billed western birds (which moreover have the under- 

 surface in the winter plumage paler and whiter) as brevirostris. 



In my opinion neither of these species merit retention, but 

 certainly of the two, intermedia is the most strongly character- 

 ized ; brevirostris appears to me to be nothing but the ordinary 

 asiatica of the whole of the dry plains portion of India, and 

 I think I understood Mr. Blanford himself to say that Sindh 

 specimens were probably not separable from brevirostris. 



