120 LIST OF BIEDS IN MANIPUR, 



Assam, Cachar, Sylhet or British Btirmah nothing seems 

 known. 



Lastly 332. — Pnoepyga longicaudata, Moore, of which I 

 have numbers of specimens from Shillong, and which Godwin- 

 Austen obtained from Cherrapoonjee a little further south, and of 

 which likewise we have no further records from any of the four 

 provinces and districts above referred to. 



3326*5. — Pnoepyga chocolatina, G. Aust. ^ Wald. 



I never met with this species in Manipur, but the type came 

 from Kedimai in the Manipur hills. 



I have never seen a specimen of this species, I mean one of 

 the types, but I confess that I have doubts as to its validity, 

 and suspect it to be only one stage of plumage of Pnoepyga 

 longicaudata, and if so this latter species must be included 

 in the Manipur list, and chocolatina suppressed. My reason 

 for this suspicion is that, after the most careful study of all 

 my friend Major Godwin- Austen seems to have written on the 

 subject, I find I have specimens of longicaudata (immature as 

 I conceive) which answer in every respect to his descriptions 

 and dimensions, except that not one has a. wing so small as 

 he gives it, viz., 1*87, the smallest wing in my birds being 1'95. 

 Between these longicaudata with no black markings on the upper 

 surface, only a little paling towards the edges of some of the 

 feathers, and the perfect adult (as I fancy it to be) with the 

 entire upper surface thickly marked with narrow blackish 

 lunules, every intermediate gradation is visible. 



It would be a real charity to us Indian ornithologists if 

 Major Godwin- Austen would carefully re-examine his chocolatina 

 and say whether it differs in any respect structurally from 

 longicaudata, and whether he feels certain it is not, as I suggest, 

 one stage of this latter. 



An analogoiis mysterious form is P. concolor, Hodgson, care- 

 fully twice figured by him as a bird precisely similar to P. sgua- 

 mata in structure and size, but of an immaculate smoky olive 

 brown, darker only on wings and tail. I have never seen such a 

 specimen ; it has hitherto been accepted as a stage of squamata. 

 Mr. Sharpe places it without doubt as the immature bird of 

 this species, but out of the many hundreds of speci- 

 mens of this species that have passed through my hands I 

 have never seen one at all like Mr. Hodgson's plates, and I 

 cannot help suspecting that it is either distinct or an abnormal 

 melanism. There is a specimen in the British Museum, and 

 I hope Mr. Sharpe will re-examine it, for I cannot believe that 



