ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACBAR. 97 



IF any one considers this a doubtful species I can only say 

 that I am now disposed to agree in this view, and set it down 

 as merely a race of brevirostris. At the same time it runs 

 smaller, the wings of the finest males not exceeding S'-i 

 (against 3"4 to almost S'8 in brevirostris), and many are 

 most markedly smaller ; and, again, the females have bright 

 yellow throats, not the pale yellow or yellowish white of 

 brevirostris. Still the biggest males of neglectus are not, I 

 think, separable, or barely so, from the smallest of brevirostris, 

 and I should, as at present advised, be quite content to reunite 

 neglectus and brevirostris. Their habits, haunts, and not© 

 are identical, and though you can tell the females directly you 

 shoot them, the males only differ, so far as I can see, in size, 

 and a distinction of this kind is not, according to my present 

 views, of specific value. 



I know of the occurrence of this race nowhere in Assam, 

 Sylhet, Cachar or British Burmah, except in the hill forests of 

 Central Tenasserim. 



274.— Pericrocotus Solaris, Bit/. 



A single specimen only observed, and that was high up 

 at about 6,000 feet on a wooded peak near Tankool Hoondoong. 

 I never saw this bird again, and even this I did not preserve, 

 as, though I shot it, it fell far down the khud, and though we 

 recovered the bird we could not find one single feather of its 

 tail. However the bird was an adult male, and there could be 

 no doubt about it. 



Godwin-Austen got this in the Khasi hills, but I have no 

 knowledge of its occurrence elsewhere in Assam, Sylhet and 

 Cachar ; and, though I have an idea that I have seen it from 

 the N.-E. Pegu Hills, I have no record of its occurrence any- 

 where in British Burmah, except about Mooleyit and near 

 Thatone, both in Tenasserim. 



275.— Pericrocotus roseus, Vieill. 



I only procured this in the south and south-east of the 

 basin near the bases of the hills, as at Koombee, Soognoo, 

 Phalel, Kokshin Koolel, &c. I may perhaps have seen it in 

 the Eerung valley (my people said they saw it there), but if 

 so I did not identify it. 



It seems very common in the Dibrugarh district. I have 

 if from Sadiya, Tippook, Kowang, Joonkotollee, &c., and 

 God win- Austen reports it from the Khasi hills, but here my 

 knowledge of its occurrence in Assam, Cachar and Sylhet ends. 



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