OP THE TRAVANCORE HILLS. 365 
of feathering, and scutelation of the tarsi, and though indi- 
vidual specimens will be found to differ greatly in all these 
particulars, such differences exist equally in examples in all 
stages of plumage, and I really think that I may safely assert 
that all belong to one and the same species. 
The variations of plumage are doubtless extraordinary, but 
between specimens which above are a dull grey brown, the 
feathers slightly margined with rufous, and below almost un- 
spotted white, tinged only on the sides and flanks with rufous, 
and with an unbarred pale, salmon-coloured tail, to the deep 
chocolate almost blackish-brown bird, with a tail conspicuously 
barred with white, every intermediate shade of plumage exists, 
and with the whole series laid out before one itis absolutely 
impossible to draw a line any where. 
I have a good many (26) more specimens, besides those above 
enumerated, which not being sexed, I have not thought it neces- 
sary to record, but not one (belonging to this type, and of 
course excluding plumipes) from the Himalayas or any part of 
India in which the wing is less than 16°25. 
It has in the first place to be noticed that the above classifi- 
cation has no pretensions to mathematical accuracy. Nature 
draws no hard and fast line, and, except the last sub-division, 
each of the classes includes several specimens which might 
with almost equal reason be included, either in the preceding 
or in the subsequent class, as the case may be. 
I have done my best to place each specimen in the sub- 
division to which, on the whole, it seems most properly to belong ; 
but there are still a few birds so thoroughly intermediate that 
any one else might arrange them differently. 
As regards the fifth sub-division all seven specimens are 
typical, and, as will be observed, are without exception males. 
It is just possible that the females never assume this dark plu- 
mage, but this seems unlikely, seeing that fully half of my 
specimens of plumipes in the corresponding stage of plumage 
are presumably females, and Mr. Blanford records having shot, 
and himself sexed, a female in this stage of plumage with the 
wing, 15:9.—(J. A. 8. B. 1872, p. 41). 
As regards the remaining stages of plumage, it is curious 
that out of 44 in the Ist stage 22 are females, out of 8 in the 
2nd stage, only 3 are females, of 14 in the 3rd stage, 5 
are females, and of 21 in the 4th stage only 9 are females, 
while as already noticed in the last stage, none are fe- 
males. 
IT cannot at all explain what this indicates, the more so 
that where 2 or more birds are together, collectors naturally 
shoot the biggest and finest specimens. 
