ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 161 



is a mystefy, and indicates that our present evolution hypothesis 

 itself requires further evolution. 



I subjoin particulars of one moniliger I happened to 

 measure: Male. — Length, 12 1; expanse, 14*3 ; tail, 5'4 ; 

 wing, 5'0; tarsus, 1"57; bill from gape, 1 "35 ; weight, 3*7ozs, 



Legs and feet pale silvery greyish white ; bill blackish 

 dusky, whitish horny at tips and along edges of both mandi- 

 bles ; irides pale orange. In this, as in pectoralis, the colours 

 of the soft parts vary somewhat in every specimen. 



This species has been received or recorded from all the 

 localities in Assam, Cachar, Sylhet and British Burmah, 

 from which pectoralis has been received or recorded, but not 

 from any others, except Southern Pegu, where it is common, 

 while pectoralis only occurs as a chance straggler. 



4136w.— Garrulax merulinus, Bly. 



I only met with this rare species high up on the Eastern 

 hills at Matchi and Tankool Hoondoong, but some of Godwin- 

 Austen's people obtained it a little further north than the 

 latter place at the head of the Thobal valley, where I met with 

 it ; it was very rare and very difficult to procure. It is a 

 terrible skulk, clinging to dense thorny scrub. A hillside that 

 some few years previously has been denuded of trees for 

 cultivating purposes by Kookkies and abandoned by these 

 has relapsed into a dense thicket of wild raspberries, inter- 

 mingled with strong shoots from the old tree roots, is a 

 favourite haunt. Never will you find them in any place in 

 which it is possible even to creep about, without cutting your 

 way. They are rightly called merulinus ( though this name was 

 of course given with reference to other peculiarities) for they 

 are very vocal and have a great variety of clear beautiful notes 

 which they combine into a great variety of calls, and besides 

 these they have a coughing, chuckling, oft-repeated note. 

 Generally when two or three ( they always seem to keep in 

 parties ) have been whistling their calls most musically, one 

 of the others breaks in with this depreciatory cackle. 



What hours and hours I spent after these wretches attracted, 

 at half a mile's distance even, by their beautiful mellow notes, 

 and after all I never once caught sight of one, and the three 

 I shot were all shot by the sound. I have crawled into a thicket, 

 defying thorns and creeping things, as near as possible to them, 

 and then by having several men moving about the opposite 

 edges of the thicket have had the whole party gradually 

 drawn nearer and nearer, till at last they were fleeting 

 all round me, and yet I could not catch a glimpse of ona. 



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