ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR, 213 



of dry low grass (say two to three feet high) in which I chiefly 

 saw it, you can always flush it once, and then you have from two 

 to five seconds in which to knock it down before it vanishes for 

 ever, for as a rule they will not rise twice. It is a mere 

 knack killing them, and I missed or rather was too slow for 

 the majority at first, but I soon came to be able to make 

 quite certain of them by always standing with my gun to 

 the shoulder, cocked and finger on trigger and in readiness to 

 fire instantaneously. 



Jerdon's measurements, colours of soft parts, &c., are not 

 satisfactory, and the plumage too is very variable. 



It is curious that in the very large series I preserved there 

 are only two females, and unfortunately I measured only one 

 of these : — 



The fourth male, and the female also, I think, are not quite 

 adult. 



^ The legs, feet and claws are a very delicate fleshy pink, at 

 times with a slight brownish tinge ; the upper mandible is deep 

 to blackish brown, sometimes paling at the extreme tip, the 

 lower pale horny pink ; irides yellowish to reddish brown, to 

 almost orange. 



We have yet to work out thoroughly the plumage of this 

 species, which varies a good deal in tint even in birds shot 

 at the same season. 



The whole of the upper parts of the body (excluding the 

 rump), including the sides of the neck and upper tail-coverts, 

 are black, or very nearly so ; all the feathers of the head 

 fringed in the cold season with brownish rusty, paler or 

 darker, richer or duller in tint in various specimens. In 

 June these pale fringes or margins have almost disappeared, 

 and what remains of them have bleached almost white. 

 The feathers of the sides of the neck, and generally of the 

 nape also, are, even in the cold weather, fringed with white, and 

 sometimes this white fringe extends, as in a February speci- 

 men before me, to the whole interscapulary region. It seems 

 generally to do so in the June specimens, but in the cold 

 weather, as a rule, the entire back and upper tail-coverts are 

 fringed with a ferruginous buff, very deep-coloured in 

 December, but growing paler as the spring advances. Nearly 



