ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 247 



from the central ones, more and more broadly ; chin, throat, 

 lower half of sides of neck, breast and abdomen, pure white ; 

 flanks, vent, lower tail-coverts, pale, (more or less) rusty, buff ; 

 wing-lining, axillaries and inner margins of quills white. 



I have never seen this species from anywhere in Assam, 

 Sylhet or Cachar, but Godwin-Austen records it from the head 

 of the Jhiri river close under the Burrail range. In the higher 

 hills of Tenasserim and Karenee it is replaced by L. saturata, 

 Wald. {L. davisoni, nobis, V, 110), but I am not aware of the 

 occurrence of either species in Pegu or Arakan, the hills being 

 perhaps scarcely high enough. 



From Shillong and other places in the Khasi hills, I have 

 614. — Liothrix luteus, Scop., but I never met with this in 

 Manipur, nor do I yet know of its occurrence anywhere in 

 Assam, Sylhet and Cachar, except in the Khasi hills. Blyth 

 records it from Arakan, but I am not aware that it has been 

 observed elsewhere in British Burmah. 



615. — Mesia argentauris, Hodgs, 



In the Western hills I only saw and shot a single pair on the 

 high Limatol range, but in the higher portions of the Eastern 

 hills it was very common, though I never shot it except by 

 mistake, it not being a bird we wanted. 



I measured a single male : — Length, 7*0 ; expanse, 9'5 ; tail, 

 2*8; wing, 3 ; tarsus, 1 '02; bill from gape, 063; weight, 

 0-94OZ. 



Legs and feet pale brownish wax yellow ; bill clear bright 

 wax yellow ; irides claret colour to lac red. 



Jerdon remarks : " The female is said to differ in the tail- 

 coverts being fulvous yellow instead of red, but I found them 

 precisely similar, the young only having those parts coloured as 

 above. " There is no doubt that Jerdon is wrong. I have dis- 

 sected numbers elsewhere and a dozen or so in Manipur. The 

 adult male has the tail-coverts, upper and lower, crimson, 

 deepest on the upper and more or less tinged with yellow 

 towards the bases of the lower. In the adult female the upper 

 tail-coverts are a slightly brownish, or, at times, in places reddish, 

 golden, the lower, ochreous or ochraceous buff. 



I have this from Kohima in the Naga hills, and Godwin- 

 Austen gives it from the Khasi hills, and includes it in his 

 Dafla hill list. Beyond this I know nothing of its distribution 

 in Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. It occurs in the higher hills 

 of Northern and Central Tenasserim, but not so far as we 



