422 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



The other, which I follow Jerdon in calling meena, Sykes, 

 with the grey under-tail coverts, is an Indo-Burmese bird, 

 inhabiting the whole of Burma, Eastern Bengal, Assam, the 

 Bhootan Doavs and the Sikhim Terai, and lower hills, as scores 

 of other Indo-Burmese species do, and extending, which is 

 almost peculiar to themselves, from Lower Bengal through 

 the hill tracts of the Tributary Mehals, on the one hand along 

 the northern portions of the Eastern Ghats, and on the other, 

 through the hilly portions of the Central Provinces and North- 

 ern Bombay right to the Western Ghats, and down these to per- 

 haps the 15° K L. 



This is virtually a sedentary and non-migratory species, though 

 found higher and lower at different seasons. But in its extension 

 westward, the usual change in plumage, observable in species 

 passing from damp to dry climates, occurs, and the more west- 

 ern examples are less richly colored than the eastern, and have 

 the lower tail-coverts paler. But though paler, they are at all 

 times distinct from the white or nearly white ones of the north- 

 ern migratory species. 



What has misled many, and perhaps amongst them Mr. 

 Dresser, is that at certain seasons, you may, in some localities, 

 shoot both species out of the same tree, and this will be at once 

 understood when it is borne in mind that the one species meena, 

 the sedentary one occupies a broad belt stretching athwart the 

 entire continent of India from east to west, while the other 

 rupicola or pulchrata migrates due south and north. Thus 

 at certain seasons at Mahabaleshwar both species, I believe, 

 occur, though meena is unquestionably the common resident one, 

 and here or elsewhere within his limits Sykes may have obtain- 

 ed a specimen of the northern race. 



If, considering that Sykes' name included both species, orni- 

 thologists insist on rejecting it notwithstanding Jerdon's resus- 

 citation of it, then probably (I have not the work at hand) 

 TickelFs name " agricola" will be applicable ; but be the names 

 what they may, no possible doubt can exist in the minds of 

 any who have studied the question on the spot, amongst the 

 live birds, that the two species are thoroughly distinct. 



I may add that, despite the desert, a few specimens of the 

 northern race find their way to Aboo, aud that neither species, 

 I believe, have been found in the Nilgheris, Palnis, or other por- 

 tions of the Peninsula much south of the 15° N. L. 



795 bis.— Turtur tigrina, Tern. (34). Descr. S. E 3 L, 

 461. 



Kyouk-nyat ; Palipoon ; Moulmein ; Yea-boo ; Letet ; Amherst ; Tavoy ; 

 Sliymotee ; Uslieetlierrpone ; Mergui ; Tenasserim Town ; Bankasoon ; 

 Malewoon. 



