ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 181 



either anywhere else in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. Melano- 

 cephalus is widely spread throughout British Burmali (though 

 rare in Northern Pegu), where occasional specimens of 

 cenereiventris have also been procured {vide S. F,, VI, 319 ; 

 X, 210 and n.) 



460. — Otocompsa emeria,'' Lin. 



Found everywhere in Manipur alike in the hills and 

 the basin. In the latter it is excessively numerous, 

 as it is in the Eastern hills, where it goes about in 

 parties of twenty to thirty. I have noted that one day 



* According to Mr. Sharpe this ought to stand as jocosa, Lin., and fusci- 

 caudata as emeria. I think this very doubtful. In the first place Mr. Sharpe 

 fails to notice that Linnaeus in an earlier part of his work, I, 137, No. 23, 

 described one of these two birds as Lanius emeria^ We may, therefore, ignore 

 Muscicapa emeria, Lin., of I, 326, on which Mr. Sharpe bases bis case. 

 It does not matter one straw which of the two this bird is ; the name must 

 be fixed by the Laniux emeria, I, 137. Now this was based solely on 

 Brisson's Lanius hengalensis fuscus, II, 175. Brisson loc. cit. gives a 

 description not from a specimen (no dimensions given, which he always 

 gives when he has examined a specimen) but from a bad plate of Albin's- 

 Now the description fits either bird well, but no mention is made of white 

 tips to the tail-feathers. Is that conclusive ? Far fro m it. Albin's plate is 

 admittedly a bad one, and did not show white tips to the tail, and so 

 Brisson did not describe these. But we know that this bird came out of 

 Mr. Joseph Dandridge's collection, and that it was received by him from 

 Bengal, then (1735-1740) utterly distinct from the Madras and Bombay 

 settlements, and we know that the white tipped tailed species occurs all 

 over Bengal and the non-white tipped tailed species occurs in no part of 

 Bengal, and it is therefore clear that it is the former and not the latter 

 which is Linne's Lanius emeria. 



But perhaps Mr. Sharpe may contend that Edwards' plate. No. 190, was 

 taken from this same specimen, and that Edwards' neither in his figure 

 nor description refers to any white tips to the tail. But the reply to this 

 is that equally in neither does he refer to the conspicuous characteristic 

 black or dark-brown stripe running from the base of the lower mandible 

 under the cheeks to the back of the ear-coverts equally present in both 

 species, and which by the way is carefully noted by Brisson in his descrip- 

 tion, taken from a specimen of Le petit merle hnpe de la chine. If Edwards 

 could overlook the one so he might the other. We know for certain that 

 Lanius emeria, Lin., applies to either the Bengal species or the Southern 

 Indian one, but we also know for certain that the particular specimen to 

 which the name was applied came from Bengal, and we therefore know 

 that it is to the white-tipped tailed species (any errors of descriptions or 

 figures to the contrary notwithstanding) that the name emeria ought to 

 be applied. 



The very young bird has no red ear-tuft and no white tippings to the 

 tail ; most have a slight irregular paling on the lower surfaces of the tail- 

 feathers about the margins at the tips, but some do not even show that. 

 As a rule, the white tips begin to appear before the red ear-tuft, but in 

 one specimen before me the latter has preceded the former. But in no 

 specimen that I can find, however young of either species, is the cheek 

 stripe wanting, and the omission of this in Edwards' figure must have 

 been carelessness — a carelcussness that deprives his omission to figure and 

 describe the white tips of the tail of all weight. 



