Novelties. — Ejjhialtes Bnicei. 9 



within 0"9 inch of end of tail. The third and fourth primaries 

 are the longest ; the first is 0-75 inch^ and the second is 0*08 

 shorter. The exterior tail feathers are 0*3 inch shorter than the 

 central ones. Weig-ht^ 4 oz. 



Description. — The legs and feet^ including the base of the toes^ 

 densely feathered ; terminal portions of toes with small transverse 

 scutse, slate colored ; claws blacky well curved, slender, and very 

 sharp ; toes very slender, but pads largely developed, so as to 

 make a broad sole ; exterior toe more or less versatile j irides 

 bright yellow ; bill dusky. 



Phmiage. — Cheeks and feathers under the eye, greyish white, 

 excessively finel};^ and indistinctly barred with brown. The lores 

 and a stripe running up from them to the top of the eye, creamy 

 white. The longer ones that meet over the base of the upper 

 mandible, tinged brownish ; a few tiny dark brown feathers on 

 the eyelids. Chin and throat, creamy white, with very narrow 

 central shaft stripes towards the tips and excessively finely ver- 

 miciliated with brown. Feathers of the ruff which is inconspi- 

 cuous, very pale buff, narrowly edged with dark brown. The 

 whole of the forehead, crown, back of head, back and sides of 

 neck, back scapulars, wing coverts, rump, and upper tail coverts, 

 very pale buff or creamy white, so minutely and closely powdered 

 with pale brown, that looked at from a little distance, the fea- 

 thers appear to be a uniform pale earthy brown. Every feather 

 has a narrow central dark-brown stripe ; some of the outer scapu- 

 lars have inconspicuous patches of buff on their outer webs, and the 

 groundcolor of the feather on each side of the crown immediately 

 above the eye is slightly paler ; but beyond this the whole of the 

 upper plumage above described is singularly uniform in tint and 

 appearance, and is absolutely devoid of those white spots and 

 blackish brown or buff dashes and streaks so characteristic of the 

 other Indian species. The primaries are pale dingy buff, with 

 broad transverse brown bars, which toward the tips are with the 

 ground color mottled and freckled over, the ground color with 

 brown, and the bars with dingy fulvous. Nearer the base of the 

 feather, the light bars are on the exterior webs pure pale buff, 

 while the dark bars continue freckled as already descri])ed. On 

 the inner webs, the dark bars are nearly uniform and unmottled, 

 while the light bars are pure and unmottled towards the edge 

 of the webs, and suffused with brown towards the shafts. The 

 tertiaries and the tips of the secondai'ies approximate closely to the 

 plumage of the back and coverts. Of the breast and abdomen, the 

 ground color is similar to that of the upper parts, but the brown 

 powdering- is coarser, so that more of the ground color is seen, 

 and the dark brown central shaft stripes are somewhat broad- 



