294 EIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



I never saw them sitting sunning themselves on a bare 

 branch, or catching insects on the wing. They have a habit of 

 rapidly expanding and closing their tails as they move about, 

 but without erecting it as a Leucocerca does. They are not at 

 all shy birds, and there is not the slightest difficulty in approach- 

 ing and shooting them. — W. D.] 



The following are dimensions and colors of soft parts 

 recorded in the flesh from a large series : — 



Males. — Length, 8 7 to 8*9 ; expanse, 11*0; tail from vent, 

 4 - l ; wing, 3*55 ; tarsus, 1*12 to 1*15; bill from gape, 0*9 to 

 0-98 ; weight, 1-2 to 1-25 oz. 



Females. — Length, 8*3 to 9'0 ; expanse, 10*2 to 10-7 ; tail 

 from vent, 3*9 to 4*2 ; wing, 3*35 to 3*5 ; tarsus, 1*05 to 1*15 ; 

 bill from gape, 0'8 to 0*9 ; weight, 1 to l'37oz. 



The legs and feet varied from a very dark reddish brown 

 to a dark purplish brown or brownish black ; bill black ; irides 

 lake. 



The lores, forehead, crown, occiput, nape, cheeks, ear-coverts, 

 and point of the chin, glossy black, with a faint greenish 

 reflection, only the ear-coverts, in some specimens, with a slightly 

 browner tinge ; the rest of the chin, throat, breast, abdomen, 

 aud entire lower parts, including wing-lining, axillaries, and 

 lower tail-coverts, snowy white, a little pencilled with brownish 

 grey in most specimens towards the sides of the breast ; the 

 entire back, scapulars, and lesser and median wing- coverts a 

 deep, somewhat chocolate brown ; rump and upper tail-coverts 

 a dull, somewhat greyer brown ; quills and greater coverts hair 

 brown ; the tertiaries and some of the later secondaries, towards 

 their tips, with a more or less decided chocolate tinge ; all the 

 feathers margined on the outer webs with black, which on the 

 quills has distinct, though not conspicuous, greenish reflections ; 

 tail brown ; the central tail feathers paler, and with a sort of 

 pale chocolate tinge; the central pair narrowly, and each succeed- 

 ing pair (the tail is very much graduated) more and more broadly, 

 tipped with pure white, and all the feathers fringed darker; in some 

 almost blackish on their outer webs just towards the bases. 



430. — Sibia picaoides, Hodgs. 



Obtained by Wardlaw Ramsay at Karennee at 5,000 feet. 

 Colonel Tickell, Ibis, 1876, 354, mentions, in his manuscript 

 illustrations of Indian Ornithology, that he killed this species 

 at an elevation of 3,000 feet in Tenasserim, and that " it inha- 

 bits the whole Eastern Cis-Himalaya and along the Malayan 

 spur. " 



Davison has been a good deal in these hills now, but has seen 

 no traces of this species. 



Sibia melanoleuca is common. 



