176 NOTES ON THE LIST OF THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 



We have a larg-e series of both species, comparatively rare 

 though they are, but with two exceptions all my specimens of 

 the present species were obtained in Sind, where it breeds 

 freely on the E. Narra. These two exceptions were obtained 

 at Loyah in the Etawah district. 



5. — S. nitens. — The adults of this species are always entirely 

 spotless. My specimens are all from Cashmere and Attock, 

 but I have one specimen obtained in the Kumaon Babhur. 



It is very desirable to ascertain accurately the range of these 

 several species, and I hope that the table above given will en- 

 able all my readers to discriminate these several species, and 

 thus help me to determine exactly the range of each. 



I diaresay that at first sight many people will suppose that I 

 am needlessly making species, but all that is necessary is to ex- 

 amine a large series of each form. Whoever does so will, I am 

 sure, admit that it is impossible to unite any one of these five 

 forms. They are all perfectly distinct, and no intermediate 

 form whatsoever appears to occur, and there is, therefore, no 

 alternative, it seems to me, to keeping each as a distinct 

 species. 



got^s on i\u 3mi of ih Itris of ^Mm. 



By W. T. Blanford. 



I HAVE a few alterations and emendations to suggest in the 

 list of the " Birds of India.''' Of the great value of this list, there 

 can be no question ; it supplies a most important desideratum 

 to every working ornithologist, and will save many a wearisome 

 half hour which would without it be spent upon indices. It is 

 very much like the treatment proverbially deprecated in 

 the'case of a '' gift horse" to raise objections to the list itself, 

 but I hope 1 may be pardoned if I call attention to one or 

 two points in connection with it, which are, I think, worth 

 discussing. 



In the first place, to begin at the very beginning, is it quite 

 correct to call this catalogue "A List of the Birds of India'^? 

 I bad some diseussi6n in former years on this subject with 

 various English Naturalists, who, as I thought and still think, 

 used the term India in an excessively loose and ambiguous 

 manner, to imply the whole of South- Western Asia. No doubt 

 there is ample authority for such an employment of the term ; 

 the whole of the Dutch possessions in the Malay Archipelago 

 are still known as Netherlands India ; there may still be atlases 

 extant, in which Burmah, Siam, and the neighbouring countries 



