ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 43 



athertoni, though that too is four-syllabled, and this puzzling 

 note was, I believe, cuculine. 



This species we have from N.-E. Cachar, the Khasi hills 

 Cand_ Godwm-Austen got it in the Garos also) and various 

 localities in the Dibrugarh district. 



[Confined to dense forests and a very wary bird, though its 

 flight when disturbed is very heavy. The call is a loud grunt of 

 four syllables. May not the cuculine call, heard by Mr. Hume's 

 collector as mentioned above, have been that of U. epops* 

 Last January when walking about the station of Bettiah I 

 heard a feeble, and to me very cuculine, call, and on tracing 

 out the bird, was astonished to find it proceeded from U. epops. 

 On one occasion I saw a Nyctiornis flying about the station 

 of Dibrugarh.— J. R C] 



It occurs in the North-Eastern Pegu hills, and Mr. Gates 

 obtained it near Pegu Town, and we have it from many places 

 in the northern and central portions of Tenasserim. I do not 

 know of its occurrence in British Burmah, west of the Pegu 

 Yoma. 



124.— Coracias aflanis, McClelL 



Seen nowhere in either the Eastern or Western hills. 

 Scarce in the Jhiri valley, and very thinly distributed in the 

 Manipur basin, where I may have seen a score at most from 

 first to last. All the four I shot, or at any rate preserved, in 

 Manipur (for I shot one or two in bad plumage that I did not 

 skin) are typical affinis. 



This species occurs throughout Sylhet and Cachar, and 

 the Assam valley f (though everywhere much scarcer than indica, 

 is in the plains of India) ; and Godwin-Austen obtained it in the 

 Khasi hills — I suppose in some low valley. It is common in 

 all suitable localities throughout British Burmah, except to- 

 wards the extreme south of Tenasserim. 



126.— Eurystomus orientalis, £{n. 



This is another species never seen by me except in the 

 Jhiri valley. There are numbers of places in both Western 

 and Eastern hills where I should have expected to find it, but 

 I never saw it. Below Noongzai-ban and between that ridge 

 and the Jhiri I saw several, though I only shot one. 



It occurs in all heavy forest in Assam and the lower Assam. 



* No ; both Jhuman and I know the " Eud-hud's," or as we call it floopoos', 

 note perfectly. It is distinctly ^wo-syllabled— hut-hut, the u pronounced like 

 the double in foot. — A. 0. H. 



t [Coracias affinis, McClell.— Common all over the district of Dibrugarh. 

 Ass. '< Kousa^—J. R. C] 



