208 BIRDS OF TENASSEIUM. 



the Woodshrikes, but continually darting- out and seizing 

 insects on the wing which the Woodshrikes never, I think, do. 



They continually call to each other, uttering a soft sharp 

 note.— W. JD-] 



If H. capitalis, McClelland, H. pic&color, Hodgs., isreally dis- 

 tinct from picahis, the distribution of the two species is, to say the 

 least, remarkable. 



Bly th says of capitalis that it li is larger with a proportion- 

 ately longer tail and has a brown back/' As regards size I can 

 discover no difference between specimens from Ceylon, Anjango, 

 and typical capitalis from Assam ; but I notice that, whereas 

 in Southern Indian birds, and again in our very numerous Tenas- 

 serim specimens, almost without exception birds that have black 

 heads have also black backs. In Assam, Sikkim, and Kumaon spe- 

 cimens they have as a rule brown backs ; out of ten males from 

 Darjeeling one only has the back jet black ; two have the backs 

 mingled black and very dark brown, and the remaining seven 

 have them a darker or lighter shade of brown. The only male I 

 have from Kumaon has the back a very light brown. It seems 

 difficult to suppose that, out of eleven apparently adult birds, 

 only one should be really so. On the other hand a male shot iu 

 the OudhTeraihas the back glossy black, and so have two males 

 from Commilla, Tipperah. Again from Assam I have only one 

 male from Shillong, and that has the back brown, a little inter- ■ 

 mingled with black in the middle of the back. Again I have two 

 from Suddya, one has the back brown, the other brown, with a 

 decided admixture of black. From Assam and the Himalayas, 

 therefore, I have fourteen males, all with glossy black heads ; of 

 these, only one has a glossy black back, four have brown backs, 

 more or less intermingled with black, and nine have brown backs 

 of varying shade ; thirteen out of the fourteen, therefore, must be 

 more or less immature, and this is a far greater proportion of 

 immature birds than we should expect to procure ; unless, indeed, 

 we suppose that the majority of the adult males do assume the 

 black backs. 



Though I have at present apparently in my museum only one 

 fully black-backed male from Darjeeling, I have had others 

 and seen several others ; still the specimens we have are prima 

 facie evidence that these are very rare at Darjeeling as compared 

 with the brown-backed ones. 



Can it be that both species occur in the Himalayas, the brown- 

 backed as the resident one, the black-backed as a straggler from 

 below (the birds from the Oudh Terai, it will be remembered, has 

 ajet black back) ? 



Or is it a case similar to that of lora typhia already fully dis- 

 cussed, S. F., V., 428, et seq. } in which in one part of the couutry 



