230 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



I must first premise that the figure of this species iii the Ibis, 

 1866, pi. 11, is, at any rate in my copy, so extremely wrongly 

 coloured that it thoroughly convinced me that my bird was not 

 vivida. Luckily I remembered that I had specimens of vivida 

 from Mr. Swinhoe (from Formosa and Fungshan), and a com- 

 parison with these specimens showed that mine were true Cyornis 

 vivida. 



The best general description 1 can give my Indian readers 

 of this species is to say that males and females are marvel- 

 lously like those of Niltava sundara, but they are rather 

 larger birds and have conspicuously larger and basally broader 

 bills ; the blue of the head and rump is a little more violet, the 

 ferruginous orange of the breast runs in a tongue a little way 

 up the middle of the throat, and all the rest of the feathers of 

 the throat are tipped with dull cyaneous instead of being plain 

 black as in sundara. The female wants the blue patch at the 

 base of the neck on either side, has a longitudinal pale buff 

 stripe down the front of the lower part of the throat instead of 

 the transverse white band that sundara has, and has the whole 

 upper parts greyer and less olivaceous. 



Males. — Length, 7 to 8*1 ; expanse, 11'3 to 12*35 ; tail from 

 vent, 3 to 35 ; wing, 3*75 to 4'05 ; tarsus, 0*7 to 0-75 ; bill from 

 gape, 0'8 to 085 ; weight, 1 to 1*12 oz. 



Females. — Length, 71 to 7 6; expanse, 11*7 to 12; tail from 

 vent, 3-1 to 33; wing, 3-75 to3"95; tarsus, 07 to 0"8 ; bill 

 from gape, 0"8 to 0*82 ; weight, 1*12 oz. 



The legs and feet are dark brown, purplish brown, purplish 

 plumbeous ; bill black; irides deep brown. 



The male has the lores and a narrow frontal band velvet black ; 

 cheeks and ear-coverts dull black, with in some specimens a faint 

 purplish shade ; chin and tlvroat (except a tongue running up for 

 about 0*5 in the middle of the basal portion of the latter, which 

 tongue is colored like the breast) black ; all the feathers tipped 

 with dull purplish blue ; forehead, crown, occiput and nape, 

 rump, and all but the longest upper tail-coverts cobalt blue, 

 brightest perhaps on the forehead, and with a certain amount 

 of violet tinge ; a transverse band on either side of the neck ; 

 behind the ear-coverts the same color but duller; lesser and basal 

 portion of the median coverts similar ; interscapulary region 

 and scapulars dull dusky purplish blue in most lights, a richer 

 blue in certain lights ; quills and their greater coverts hair brown, 

 some of the latter margined towards the tips with purplish 

 blue; tail hair brown; the feathers margined and suffused on 

 their outer webs, and the central feathers with the greater portion 

 of both webs, deep blue with a violet tinge ; breast, axillaries, 

 wing-liniug, abdomen, and lower tail-coverts orange ferruginous, 

 very much as in Niltava sundara, but not quite so bright. 





