ASSAM, SYLHET AND CAGHAR. 271 



and upper tail-coverts dull buffy brown, changing gradually 

 about March (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) to a 

 grey brown, faintly and obsoletely streaked darker; tail 

 brown, growing greyer as the season advances, all the 

 feathers narrowly margined with sordid white ; primaries 

 deep brown, all but the first two margined on the outer webs, 

 above the emarginations, with dull yellow ; from the nares, 

 over lores, eyes, and ear-coverts a long narrow supercilium, 

 partly yellow, partly white, the yellow growing brighter and 

 preponderating more and more as the season advances ; lores 

 grey brown ; ear-coverts grey brown ; a short deep brown 

 band from the lower posterior margin of the eye running 

 under the supercilium and melting into the ear-coverts ; a 

 similar band from the gape also melting into the ear-coverts ; 

 between these two bands, immediately under the eye, a 

 yellowish white patch, becoming yellower as the season 

 advances ; from the base of the lower margin of the lower 

 mandible on either side a deep blackish brown line or narrow 

 band down each side of the throat ; the space between 

 these lines and the gape bands more or less bright yellow ; 

 the chin and throat between the two lines generally pale 

 yellow above, white where the throat joins the breast band, 

 but sometimes it is all yellow, sometimes all white, and the 

 two colours are very variously intermingled in different 

 specimens; a transverse deep brown line on the sides of the 

 neck behind the ear-coverts ; a parallel, more or less long 

 and bright, yellow band immediately behind this line ; the 

 entire breast jet black, the black often, during the earlier part 

 of the period (but not always even in January), more or less 

 obscured by buffy fringes to the feathers; the rest of the 

 lower parts buffy, albescent on the middle of the lower abdomen, 

 and faintly streaked (or dark shafted) immediately below the 

 breast band and on the sides and flanks with brown or grey 

 brown. 



The females and young males differ, first in the colour of the 

 bills as above explained; second, in the striations of the 

 head being generally better marked, and a less grey brown ; 

 third, in the stripes about the face being less marked and 

 the ear-coverts rather paler; fourth, in often wanting the 

 throat lines; fifth, in the black breast band being much 

 narrower and always much obscured by the pale tippings to 

 the feathers ; and, sixth, in the generally somewhat paler tone 

 of both the upper and lower surface, and the comparative 

 absence of striations on this latter. 



I obtained this species in many places in both Sylhet and 

 Cachar, and have it from others in the Dibrugarh district, 



