BIKDS OF TENASSERIM. 277 



which in some is greyish, crown, and occiput inside the grey 

 stripes, black, the shafts of the feathers often just perceptibly 

 paler; inner webs of the. quills hair brown ; wing-lining pale 

 salmon buff, as are the narrow inner mai'gins to the quills to- 

 wards their bases and axillaries, and some of the coverts near 

 the joint of wing paler or brighter ferruginous. 



399. — Pellorneum ruficeps, Swains. 



Blyth gives this from Tenasserim ; but ruficeps is a purely 

 Southern Indian bird, and most certainly does not occur in 

 Tenasserim. Doubtless Blyth referred to subochraceum, Swinh., 

 which he sent as ruficeps to that gentleman, and which he clearly 

 neither distinguished nor remembered, as he gives it (B. of B., 

 p. 114) as a synonym of the extremely different species P. 

 tickelli. 



399 ter.— Pellorneum tickelli, Bly. (l). Descr. S. P., 

 I., 299rc. 



Amherst. 



Lord Tweeddale (B. of B., p. 114) remarked that my P. 

 minus was a synonym of tickelli. This, however, it is now ad- 

 mitted is not the case. Pellorneum minus is, as I myself first 

 pointed out, in all probability a synonym of P. subochraceum. 

 Anyhow it is utterly unlike P. tickelli, which occurs both in 

 Assam and Burmah, and of which the original descriptions by 

 both Blyth and Tickell, (reproduced loc. cit. sup.) leave me 

 absolutely nothing to add on this head. 



As there had been a great deal of controversy about this 

 species, I sent a specimen of what I called P. tickelli home 

 to the Editors of the Ibis, suggesting that they should examine 

 the question and give the ornithological world the benefit of 

 their opinion. 



The Editors made over the specimen to Major Godwin- 

 Austen, i.e., transferred the case to one of the defendants, my 

 contention being that he and Lord Tweeddale have been per- 

 sistently wrong throughout. 



Major Austen says, Ibis, 1878, 115, that the bird I call P. 

 tickelli is his Turdinus garoensis ; he also says that my Tri- 

 chastoma minus is Drymocataphus fulvus, of Walden, and accor- 

 ding to him it is also P. tickelli. 



The Editors say that they believe it impossible to decide 

 whether the original P. tickelli was the bird I assert, or the 

 bird Austen asserts, though i{ the size of the specimens sent by 

 Mr. Hume seems to us to favour his view, " and they suggest 

 that it would be best to suppress Blyth's name altogether. 



I am very sorry I cannot see my way to this. I cannot 

 suppress a name which, to my mind, stands as clearly established 



