BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 319 



Of course they do not voluntarily descend to the ground, 

 where they would be helpless with their little legs, but keep 

 flying from tree to tree like others of the group. Strange to say 

 I noticed great numbers of these sitting on the telegraph wires 

 alonor the Prome road — a thing I have not observed in any other 

 Bulbul.— W. D.] 



457 quat. — Brachypodius cinereiventris, Blyth. 



Lord Tweeddale records a specimen of this species from 

 Tonghoo collected by Lieut. Wardlaw Ramsay, and remarks: 



" I have great doubts whether this is a species distinct from 

 B. melanocephalus. It seems to be rather a variety, the yellow 

 of the nape and under surface being changed to grey. A Ma- 

 laccan example in my collection is in a stage of transition from 

 yellow to grey. Where not grey, these examples do not differ 

 from B. melanocephalus. Mr. Blyth describes the tail feathers 

 as being " less deeply tinged with yellow, &c.,'"' but the rec- 

 trices in these two examples are identical with those of Malaccan 

 and Burmese specimens of B. melanocephalus" 



Taking large series and comparing sex for sex, it is certain 

 that neither are the rectrices less broadly tipped, nor is the 

 mantle darker and less yellow (another point insisted on by 

 Mr. Blyth) in cinereiventris. 



This latter has a broad collar on the back and the sides of 

 the neck, the entire breast and upper abdomen clear ash grey, 

 and the middle abdomen a rather paler grey, streaked yellow, 

 and the rest as in melanocephalus. 



Sometimes the grey extends a little lower, but in all the 

 specimens I have examined the lowest portions of the abdomen 

 and vent were yellow. 



I have only met with this race in Tipperah, whence the late 

 Mr. Valentine Irwin also sent me numerous specimens, informing 

 me that it was common there. 



I have I find 95 specimens of melanocephalus from Dacca, 

 Tipperah, and all parts of Burmah and the Malayan Peninsula ; 

 not one of these exhibits the faintest trace of grey. 



But it is a curious fact that you can manufacture cinereiven- 

 tris, or the Sumatra chalcocephalus, or any intermediate form to 

 any extent by the use of a little carbolic acid. Where the 

 colour is pure yellow, as at the tips of the tail, the feathers come 

 out white, as in these parts in chalcocephalus, but wherever the pe- 

 culiar yellow olivaceous green prevails, there the feathers re- 

 main of the exact ash grey that we find in cinereiventris and 

 chalcocephalus. 



The curious yellow green of melanocephalus is in fact a com- 

 bination of ash grey and pure yellow, and whether species or 



