ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 93 



hills (but not the Naga hills, where, however, it must occur), 

 Sylhet and Cachar. Godwin -Austen, by the way, gave 

 arenarius from the Khasi hills, but he must mean the present 

 species, which latter, I may add, is widely, I might say 

 almost universally, distributed throughout all the provinces of 

 British Burmah during the cold season. 



[In the Dibrugarh and Sibsagar districts this species is 

 common, beginning to arrive about the middle of September 

 and leaving in April, a full fortnight later than nigriceps, but 

 does not arrive till September, the earliest date I have noticed- 

 one being the 16th. — J. R C] 



263.— Tephrodornis pelvicus, Hodgs. 



This species was not rare in either the Eastern or Western 

 hills, but I never met with it in the basin. Manipur birds- 

 are almost as large as Sikhim ones. Wings measure, males, 

 5-0, 4-92, 4-77; females, 48, 477, 475, considerably larger 

 therefore than Burmese specimens (vide S. F., VI, 205). I 

 have this species from N.-E. Cachar, from the Khasi 

 hills, from Sadiya and half a dozen other localities in the 

 Dibrugarh district, and Godwin- Austen in his Dafla hill list 

 records finding it in the Darpang nullah at the base of the 

 outer hills. I have no further record of its occurrence in 

 Assam, Cachar or Sylhet. 



[Very common in forest and orchards. Those shot by 

 me in Dibrugarh seemed to run smaller than Sikhim birds. 

 Five males measured : — Length, 8'40 to 8'65 ; tail, 3 40 to 3"60 ; 

 wing, 4-50 to 4-82 ; tarsus, 075 to 085 ; bill from gape, 1-10 

 to 1"17 ; weight, 1"35 to r50oz. Seven females measured : — 

 Length, 8-35 to 890 ; tail, 3-40 to 370 ; wing, 4*50 to 475 ; 

 tarsus, 0-80 to 0-82 ; bill from gape, 1-13 to 1-19 ; weight, 130 

 to 175oz.— J. R C] 



It is widely distributed in suitable well-wooded localities 

 throughout all the provinces of British Burmah. 



267. — Hemipus picatus, Syhes. 



I have long ago (S. F., VI, 207, 208> dwelt at some length 

 on the difficulty of considering the brown-backed, black- 

 capped birds, H. capitalis, McClelL, as distinct from picatus. 

 The females are the same everywhere. Young males are found 

 everywhere with brown backs and black heads. Only in some 

 localities the majority of the adult males appear to retain 

 permanently the brown backs, or these more or less intermixed 

 with black, while in other places the adult males seem, almost 

 without exception, to have the backs pure black. 



