Notes on some Ceylonese Birds. 433 



they appear to be smaller birds, and exhibit a peculiar coloration 

 of the tail which does not correspond with tliat of any of my 

 Indian specimens, namely instead of the central tail feathers 

 being entirely chestnut with moderately broad black tips, and the 

 next pair entirely black, they have all the four central tail 

 feathers black on the inner webs and on the outer webs for 

 about one inch, the rest of the outer webs being- chestnut. I do 

 not lay much stress upon this, for the tails in these birds are 

 very variable ; but still the thing wants looking to. 



147. — Palseornis eupatrius, Linn. 



Lord Walden recently remarked of two specimens of a parrot 

 which he referred to this species, from the Andumans, that they 

 did not differ from Ceylon, Burmese, and Indian examples. I 

 shall deal more particularly with this question hereafter, but I 

 wish to say at once, that I am entirely unable to concur in this 

 view, and that in my opinion the Ceylon bird is specifically dis- 

 tinct from the Northern Indian bird, the Burmese bird, and the 

 Andaman birds ; and that if a collection of sixty or seventy of 

 the males from all these different localities were intermingled, no 

 one to whom their differences had once been pointed out could 

 hesitate a moment in assigning to each its proper locality. 

 Lord Walden was only I think referring to females, or I feel 

 sure he would, had he compared the males,, have detected the 

 marked differences that exist between the three species above 

 indicated. 



149.— Palseornis purpureus, M.ull. 



I specially notice this with reference to Mr. Holdsworth's re- 

 marks that there is another closely allied form with yelloio under 

 wing coverts which has probably been confounded with it. 

 "What species is this ? I only know of two, the present which ex- 

 tends all through Southern India, and Northern India, West, at 

 any rate of a line drawn from Calcutta to Kumaon, and the other 

 bengalensis, which occurs in Nepal, Eastern Bengal, Assam, and 

 Burmah ; the one has the lower wing coverts green, the other 

 verditer bhie. I have never yet met with a specimen^ barring 

 lutinos, with yellow under wing coverts. 



164 &ts.— Yungipicus gymnopthalmos, Blyth. 



Ceylon specimens are absolutely identical with specimens from 

 the Malabar Coast. They are perhaps a trifle smaller than 

 Hardwickii, the wings in this present species averaging about 

 2-9 in the males, against 3 in the same sex in Hardwickii ; 

 barring this, the only constant difference appears to consist in 

 the much darker occiput and nape. Doubtless^ in typical ex- 



