430 BIRDS OF TENASSERIM. 



sometimes a litharge red ; the bill and claws are white, slightly- 

 tinged blue; the cere, in the male, the same color as the bill, in 

 the female pale brown ; irides wood to dark brown ; the facial 

 skin dull pale indigo, to dark plumbeous blue. 



A nestling male measured : — 



Length, 6'25 ; expanse, 110 ; tail from vent, 0*7 ; wing, 3*3 ; 

 tarsus, 1*75; bill from gape, 0"75 ; weight, 2'5oz. 



The bill was pale horny ; irides pale brown ; eyelids grey 

 brown. 



One would require a tolerable-sized pamphlet to describe in 

 detail these magnificent birds, but fortunately they are not birds 

 which can easily be mistaken for any other. 



The males have the uppermost central feathers of the tail 

 very broad, some four inches in breadth and projecting a good 

 yard beyond the other tail feathers. On the forehead and 

 central portions of the crown and occiput the male bears a 

 short dense velvet black crest ; the back of the neck is covered 

 with narrow feathers, barred greyish white and dusky with 

 silvery shafts ; the rest of the head and neck is nearly bare, 

 though sparsely speckled with whitish hairs. 



The sides and back of the base of neck, the upper back, and 

 all the coverts, but the primary greater ones, are an intense 

 blackish brown, almost black, marbled with narrow variously- 

 shaped zig-zag bright buff bars, which combine to produce the 

 effect of a buff net-work over the whole of these parts ; the 

 rest of the back, rump, and all but the longest upper tail-coverts 

 bright buff, paler on the upper tail-coverts, with conspicuous 

 oval deep brown spots, more or less regularly disposed on both 

 webs ; the winglet is a beautiful slaty grey, with a pinkish 

 tinge on the inner webs, with black spots surrounded by a deep 

 ferruginous halo, numerous on the outer, sparse on the inner 

 webs ; a ferruginous yellow tinge runs down the inner web 

 close to the shaft ; the primary greater coverts are similar, but 

 the spots are larger on both webs, much more numerous on 

 the inner webs, the ground of which latter moreover is white 

 and the halo of its spots more orange ; the primaries have a 

 dove-colored ground, whiter on the outer webs ; the shafts 

 blue ; a narrow yellow line runs down just inside the shafts ; on 

 the outside of the shafts, except just towards the tips, are a 

 series of small white and dusky spots ; from the inner side of 

 the shaft project a number of short dusky lines corresponding 

 with the dusky spots on the other side, crossing the narrow 

 yellow line already referred to. The space occupied by these 

 narrow cross lines where not yellow is drab ; outside this band 

 lies a much broader rufous belt, closely covered all over with 

 tiny white star-like specks ; the rest of the feather is regularly 



