ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 127 



branch, and wait there to see what was up, thus frequently 

 affording a shot. 



As this bird has never been carefully measured, &c,, in the 

 flesh, I measured a good many, sexing them afterwards carefully 

 myself. The following are the particulars :— 



?. Weight, 



2-27 0Z8. 



2-53 „ 



2-4 „ 



2-2 „ 



267 „ 



2-56 „ 



2-65 „ 



261 „ 



In all the irides were brown, but deeper coloured in the old. 

 In all the legs, feet, claws, bill and eyelids were yellow, more 

 or less orange in the oldest birds, a full wax yellow in others, 

 and in the youngest birds very pale wax yellow, shaded now 

 on more or less of the upper mandible and tip of lower, now on 

 the feet and especially the tips of the claws with brown ; but one 

 male, the fourth above noted, mature as to the lower parts, 

 but with a faint olive tinge over the slatey black, had nearly 

 the whole bill a darkish horny brown, only a patch near the 

 tips of both mandibles brownish yellow, and gape pale yellow. 

 This is abnormal, as we got numbers both clearly older, 

 apparently the same age, and clearly younger, none of which 

 had similar bills. In this specimen, too, the legs were a very 

 brownish yellow. 



In the old male, not only the throat but the whole upper 

 breast is black, the feathers of this part often excessively narrow- 

 ly fringed at the tips with orange ferruginous ; except in 

 very old males, the orange ferruginous feathers of the 

 lower breast and sides are in about half the specimens 

 excessively narrowly fringed just at the tips with blackish 

 dusky. 



In the old female there is no white about the throat, the 

 entire chin, throat and upper breast are a dull olivaceous 

 fulvous brown with black longitudinal bar-like spots. 



In younger females the chin and entire front of the throat 

 are white, and the upper breast has a ground of greyish 

 olivaceous, more or less tinged with ferruginous, and the spots 

 on this are more fan-like. 



In younger females still the upper breast has only a grey 

 olive ground, with no admixture of ferruginous, and there 

 is no ferruginous even on the lower breast, this being con- 

 Sned to the sides, axillaries and wing-lining. 



