210 LIST OF BIRDS IN MANIPUR, 



and is due to their hunting insects in certain flowers and 

 getting the foreheads coloured by the pollen, as may be 

 seen, not only in this species but in twenty others 

 of the small insect-hunters from those localities. 



I do not yet say that the true gracilis of Franklin (1831) 

 is the cold-weather plumage of hodgsoni (I have a Frinia 

 which I suspect to be Franklin's bird), but only that this is 

 what the gracilis of Blyth, Jerdon and almost all modern Indian 

 ornithologists really is. 



It is absolutely certain that rufula is only the cold-weather 

 plumage of hodgsoni, but I have to add that the young 

 assume nearly the winter plumage as their first dress, so that 

 though you can never get a hodgsoni in the winter, you do get 

 young gracilis or rufula in July, August and September. 



I may note that in this species the bills vary a good deal, 

 not only in colour according to season (as do the legs also), 

 but also according to age, sex, and I think individuals. Now 

 that the identity of hodgsoni, rufula, and gracilis (as at 

 present accepted) is clear, we find a solution of the puzzle 

 referred to, S. F., VI, 348. 



I only once saw this out of the basin, and that was in the 

 Eerung valley in the Western hills, where (8th February) 1 killed 

 a young female, of which the following are the details ; — Length, 

 5*0 ; expanse, 5*5 ; tail, 2*4 ; wing, 1*7 ; tarsus, 0"75 ; bill from 

 gape, 0*53 (!) ; weight, 0"21oz. Legs and feet pale brownish 

 fleshy ; upper mandible and tip of lower brown ; rest of the 

 latter whitish homy; irides very pale yellow. This is like 

 the winter plumage, but altogether somewhat brighter 

 and more rufous on head, tail and wings, the whole visible 

 portion of the closed wings being a clear light chestnut. 

 Though very like the winter plumage I might have suspected 

 this to be distinct but for the many young birds shot 

 along with their parents in the series preserved for me by 

 Mr. Brooks. 



I have this species from many places both in the Khasi 

 hills and in the Dibrugarh district, and Godwin-Austen 

 records it from the Naga hills, but I know nothing further of its 

 distribution (probably very general) in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. 



[This species is common too in Dibrugarh, frequenting 

 swampy and grassy " pathars." — J. R. C] 



This species occurs in both Northern and Southern Pegu, and 

 Northern Tenasserim, and was obtained by Ramsay in Karenee, 



From Joonkotollee in Dibrugarh I have 5S8his. — Prinia 

 beavani, Wald, I did not meet with this in Manipur, but 



