66 LIST OF BIRDS IN MANIPUB, 



[ I shot two only of this species while in Dibrugarh, and 

 saw about half a dozen more in open and thin forest about 

 cultivation. — J. R. C] 



It occurs in Arakan, Northern and Eastern Pegu and Karenee, 

 but we have never obtained it in Tenasserim proper. 



191.— Megalsema marshallorum, Swinh. 



The mournful wailing cry of this species "pee yu " " pee yu " 

 was constantly heard in both the Eastern and Western hills from 

 about 3,500 feet and upwards, but it is very wary, and it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to creep up anywhere within shot. Eather 

 perhaps it is extremely sharp-eyed, and, on the other hand, 

 difficult to distinguish high up in the lofty trees it affects, 

 and though you can get up to the base of the tree in which 

 it is calling ( and if undisturbed it will go on calling ceaselessly 

 for half an hour at a stretch from the same perch, with only 

 a few short intermediate pauses) long before you can make 

 out itfi exact whereabouts it has made you out as a suspicious 

 character and has silently sloped off Thus, though I went 

 after it at least fifty times, I only succeeded in shooting four 

 from first to last, and all these flying shots, the bird by a rare 

 chance emerging from the tree so as to afford a glimpse of it as 

 it flew away with an undulating Woodpecker-like flight. I 

 measured two specimens, both males ; in fact all four were males. 

 They measured :— 



Length, 132, 13-6; expanse, 19-5, 19 2 ; tail, 4-4, 4-2; 

 wing, 5-7, 5-6; tarsus, 13, 1-47 ; bill from gape, 2-06, 2-11; 

 weight, 66, 7 03ozs. Of the first : Legs and feet dull pale 

 yellowish green ; soles dirty yellow ; claws black ; bill wax 

 yellow, paler on terminal halves of both mandibles and with a 

 broad black stripe on the culmen from beyond the nares to the 

 tip ; irides brownish red. Of the second : Legs and feet pale 

 leaden, overlaid with dull yellowish green ; claws horny black, 

 pale bluish at their bases ; bill wax yellow, paler on terminal 

 half of lower mandible and blackish on tip of upper mandible 

 and culmen as far back nearly as nares ; edges of lids black, 

 lower bare lid pale greenish dusky ; irides liver brown ; soles 

 dull yellow. 



Below about 3,500 feet elevation I did not hear it. 



I have this species from the Khasi hills, but firom no other 

 locality in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. 



It occurs in Arakan, and Ramsay obtained it in the Karen 

 hills, but have no record of it from anywhere in Pegu, and 

 in the Northern and Central Tenasserim hills it is replaced by 

 M. virens, Bodd., the Chinese form. 



