BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 421 



to the north of that place. I never found it in forest, thick 

 or thin, always in the open, and often in company with 

 T. tigrinus. — W. D.] 



Mr. Dresser, in pt. 55, 56 of the Birds of Europe, has united 

 (amongst other species) our Turtur meena of Sykes, and Turtur 

 pulckrata, Hodgson= T. rupicola, Pallas, of Jerdon. 



In this view I am totally unable to concur. 



In the first place, Mr. Dresser is in error in his premises. 

 He says : — 



" In India there are two forms of the present species. 



" One of these forms, the Turtur rupicola of many Indian 

 authors, is the dark form with grey under tail-coverts, and the 

 extreme of the other form which, judging from Sykes' descrip- 

 tion, is the Turtur meena of that author, has the under parts 

 paler than in Japanese and Chinese birds, and the under tail- 

 coverts aud terminal portions of the tail nearly pure white." 



Now the facts are, I believe, precisely the reverse. Jerdon, 

 in describing his rupicola, B. of I., II., 476, says : " Loiver 

 tail-coverts white ; " while of meena he says : " Lower tail-coverts 

 light grey. " Certainly all Indian authors who adopt that name 

 have followed Jerdon in assigning Pallas' name rupicola to the 

 species with the white, and not, as Mr. Dresser asserts, with the 

 grey under tail-coverts. 



As to what Sykes intended by meena one cannot speak with 

 equal certainty. Unquestionably the bird with the grey under 

 tail-coverts is the common resident one in the localities Sj- kes 

 worked, but the other occurs there also as a seasonal migrant ; 

 and, as far as I can judge, (P. Z. S., 1832, 149) he described' 

 the latter as the male, and the former, which Jerdon accepted 

 as meena, as the female. Of course on this basis Sykes' name 

 would not stand, but it will stand on Jerdon's full description 

 which restricts the name to the form with the grey under tail- 

 eoverts. 



In the second place, these two forms are as distinct as any 

 two nearly allied species possibly can be. Their dimensions and 

 coloration are different. They never grade into each other. 

 Their notes, though similar, are at once distinguishable. Their 

 area of distribution and the faunas to which they belong are 

 utterly distinct, and their migrations entirely different. 



The one which Jerdon called rupicola, with the under tail- 

 coverts white (but which I, not considering the northern Asiatic 

 form identical, call pulclirata, for the present, though I cannot 

 find any published description of the species by Hodgson) is an 

 Indian species, summering in the Himalayas, west of Sikhim, and 

 migrating due south (except where thrown eastwards by the 

 desert) in the winter. 



