116 LIST OF BIRDS IN MANIPUR, 



In the Eastern hills at Aimole I only saw two, both adult 

 males, the one solitary and the other in company with an old 

 male, Brythrostema maculata, which I also shot. 



The following are particulars of some of the specimens 

 I procured : — 



The legs and feet varied from dusky liver brown to plain 

 •dark brown; the bill in the first bird entirely black, in the 

 other two blackish, horny grey on base and lower ridge of 

 rami of lower mandible ; irides deep brown. Now two pair I 

 shot together, so that there is not the smallest doubt as to what 

 the female of this species is. As I noted from the fresh 

 bird, the secondary greater coverts are narrowly tipped with 

 pale buff, forming a not very conspicuous bar, even in life (it 

 is hardly noticeable in skins), on the posterior portion of the 

 wing. The rump and upper tail-coverts have, the latter 

 especially, a distinct rusty olive tinge, and there is a soupgon 

 of this same on the sides of the neck and the lower part of 

 the throat. 



Now there can, I think, be no earthly doubt that this female of 

 S. erythaca is God win- Austen's Erythrosterna sordida, which he 

 shot under Japvo Peak in the Naga hills, where he at the 

 same time shot the male erythaca. 



I pointed this out in 1878, S. F., VI, 510, but yet a year 

 later I find my friend Mr. Sharpe, B. M. C, IX, 156, retaining 

 this sordida as a good species, though it is, I am compelled to 

 believe, only the female of Siphia erythaca, and I therefore 

 beg to draw particular attention to this fact. 



I have this species from Shillong, and Godwin-Austen, a^ 

 above, obtained it from the Naga hills, but we know nothing 

 further of its distribution in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. 



In British Burmah we only know that we obtained it on all 

 the higher hills of Northern and Central Tenasserim, and 

 that Ramsay procured it in the Karen hills at 4,000 feet. 



323.— Erythrosterna albicilla, Pall. 



Although this was common up to Lakhipur in Cachar and some 

 miles further east, I never saw it after crossing the Jhiri, until 

 we descended from the hills into the Manipur basin, and there 

 I got it at Bishnoopoor again, and found it pretty well all over 

 the level. It is not numerically very abundant, but neither 

 is it rare even about the hedgerows of the capital, and I got 

 it at Sagam, Soognoo, Moirang and Kokshin Koolel, &c. 



