BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 239 



May. The next year in April I shot a third male at Banka- 

 soon, and in May we obtained our first female. They are ex- 

 tremely shy, and not at all like the other Pittas. Directly they 

 catch sight of you, they rise flying low, but rapidly, and not 

 alighting under 200 or 300 yards, when, of course, in the dense 

 forests, where alone they occur, all trace of them is lost. They 

 doubtless must call, but I have never heard their note to dis- 

 tinguish it. My specimens had fed entirely on large black 

 ants.— W. D.] 



I cannot help doubting that this is the real P. ccerulea of 

 Raffles, but if not, it is certainly a very closely allied repre- 

 sentative species. 



We have now procured three males and one female, and all 

 differ in the way pointed out in my note, loc. cit. supra, from all the 

 descriptions and plates which I have been able to examine of 

 ccerulea. 



Two males measured. — Length, 11*0 to 11 "62 ; expanse, 2025 

 to 20 - 8 ; tail from vent, 22 to 2*75 ; wing, 6 to ti'37 ; tarsus, 

 2 - 3 to 2*45 ; bill from gape, 1*75 to 1'76 ; from frontal bone, 

 1*75 to 19 ; weight, 7 and 8 ozs. 



Another male has the most extraordinarily developed bill, 2"01 

 from gape, and exactly the same from frontal bone to tip. 



A female in the skin has the wing 5'9 ; the tail, 2'7 ; tarsus, 

 2-3 ; bill at front, 17. 



In the male, the legs and feet were bluish fleshy or dark 

 fleshy, tinged with pale plumbeous ; the bill black ; the inside 

 of the mouth white ; eyelids and gape very dark fleshy ; irides 

 hazel grey. 



The male has the forehead, anterior portion of crown, and a 

 very broad stripe above the eye, and extending backwards to 

 the nape, a very pale grey brown, suffused with a pale greenish 

 glaucous tinge. All the feathers of the forehead, front, and 

 sides of the crown margined at the tips with black ; middle 

 of crown, occiput, and nape intense velvet black ; chin and 

 upper part of throat whitish ; lores and feathers immedi- 

 ately overhanging the lores pale brown, with a slight rufes- 

 cent tinge ; cheeks, ear-coverts, and sides of the neck, color- 

 ed like the feathers of the forehead and sides of the crown, 

 but with the glaucous tinge less strongly developed. 



On the sides of the neck immediately behind, but rather above 

 the ear-coverts, a black velvet patch, which is really continuous 

 with the black of the nape, but which, except when the bird is 

 excited, appears divided from this by the ends of the elongated 

 glaucous grey plumes, forming the stripe already referred to, 

 and which spring from the sides of the occiput. The feathers 

 of the occiput are elongated, forming apparently a full crest, 

 which, however, Davison assures me, is not erected by the bird 



