ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 151 



duller or brighter in different specimens. Entire upper sur- 

 face, wings and tail olive brown, in some pure, often with 

 more or less of a rufescent fulvous tinge, specially on 

 the sides of the neck behind the ear-coverts. Tail darker in 

 some, and inner webs always deep brown, the olive portions 

 of the feathers, generally (not always) distinctly and closely, 

 though narrowly, barred with brown. Outer edges generally of 

 earlier primaries, especially the terminal portions, sometimes 

 of all the primaries, paler and greyer, or rather more fulvous 

 as the case may be. Chin, throat, breast and abdomen 

 white, sometimes very pure, often slightly sullied. These 

 parts spotted more or less with spots which are commonly 

 a dusky ashy olive, sometimes dingy brown, sometimes 

 nearly dusky black. Normally there are only about three 

 rows of these spots well apart, and these only on the base 

 of the throat and upper breast. Occasionally there are only 

 two or three spots altogether ; occasionally these three or four 

 rows coalesce and form stripes, and then the whole of the rest 

 of the breast and the abdomen are also spotted, sometimes 

 quite thickly. Vent and lower tail-coverts bright ferruginous ; 

 tibial plumes similar, but duller and shaded above with olive. 

 Sides and flanks dull olive, or dusky ashy olive, or with a 

 fulvous rusty tinge, or again sometimes brushed strongly on 

 the sides of the breast with bright rusty. Inner margins 

 of quills on lower surface of wing a kind of pale buffy fulvous, 

 varying a good deal in tint. 



Several nestlings that I procured in the middle of May 

 (they must lay early in April) are browner and more rusty 

 and less olivaceous than the adults, especially on the sides of 

 the breast, body and flanks. The very youngest shows a rusty 

 mottling over the entire breast and lower throat, where the 

 spotting will be, while in others, a little older, this has partly 

 cleared away, and on the cleared spaces a few of the ordinary 

 dusky spots similar to those of adults, but paler, are observable. 



But the most noticeable feature is the bill, which, in the 

 youngest bird just able to fly, (it rose just like a quail, and 

 I knocked it down instanter with a small charge, not know- 

 ing what on earth it was) is barely 0*5 from margin of 

 feathers (against 1-0 to 1-2 in adults) quite thrush-like, and 

 almost perfectly straight. In an older bird it is 65, but 

 still almost straight, but in one in which it is 077 the curve 

 has become apparent. This gradual development in the 

 curve of the bill of these Pomatorhini is noteworthy. 



We have many specimens of this species from Shillong and 

 other places in the Khasi hills, and again from the Naga 



