Notes oil some Ceylonese Birds. 435 



white supereilium extending- to the nape ; the lores, cheeks, and 

 ear coverts are blackish brown, in some specimens almost black ; 

 in the Ceylon bird the npper surface is a grey brown, there is 

 barely a trace of a supereilium, and the lores, cheeks, and ear 

 coverts are almost concolorous with the nape. If we come 

 further west and south, and take birds from say Dehra, Ag-ra, 

 Sambhur, Kutch, and Sindh, and ag-ain from Saugor and 

 Raipoor, throughout which vast tract the same type prevails, 

 we have birds similar to those from Dacca, and with equally 

 large supercilia, but with a light upper surface and a lighter 

 cheek and ear patch ; still the brown of the upper surface is 

 earth-brown without the least tendency to grey, and the contrast 

 between the ear coverts and the color of the upper surface eqiially 

 strongly marked. If we go further south, the supereilium 

 shrinks, the cheek and ear patch becomes more nearly concolorous 

 with the nape, and the upper surface gets a tinge of grey, and 

 down in the extreme south, as at Anjango, birds may be met 

 with exactly similar to the Ceylon birds except that they are 

 not quite so grey. I myself should be quite inclined to disallow 

 ajlflnis as a distinct species, but any one who retains Or'ioVm 

 ce/jlonensis, must also, it appears to me, necessarily retain 

 T. affinis. 



267. — Hemipus picatus, %/jes. 



This species extends not merely to Southern India as Mr. 

 Holdsworth supposes, but to the Himalayas also. MacClelland, 

 I think it was, first set people wrong by describing the brown, 

 backed birds, which are merely the females, as a distinct species, 

 cajyitalis, and Blyth perpetuated the error in the Ibis for 1866. 

 I have males and females from various places in Southern India, 

 as well as numbers from the Himalayas, and the same sexes from 

 all localities are precisely identical. 



270 6'is.— Grauculus Layardi, Blyth. 



Whether this should be considered a distinct species or not is 

 purely a matter of taste. The Ceylon birds do average smaller, 

 with wings from 5 "5 to 6, whilst Northern Indian birds m^y be 

 found, with wings running up to 7 or even more ; but every size 

 of wing between 5'5 and 7 will be met with in a large series. 

 As for the barring or non-barring of the under wing coverts, the 

 presence, or absence of abdominal bars, the amount of white tip- 

 ping to the tail and the darkness or lightness of the shade of the 

 upper plumage, I cannot discover that any constant difference 

 exists when series and not individual birds, obtained in different 

 parts of the country are compared. These differences are, it ap- 



