407 
On the Adentity of Drymoipus tervicolor, and Drpmoipus 
longicaudatus. 
AFTER re-examining my whole series of these little Wren 
Warblers I feel much inclined to concur with Mr. Brooks in 
uniting them. I still consider the bird of the hills of Southern 
India to be distinct, and should have retained for it Sykes’ name 
tnornatus, but for Mr. Brooks’ assurance, ante p. 274, that Sykes’ 
type belongs to the northern form. The southern form must 
probably stand as D. fuscus, Hodgson. 
The main facton which I should rely for the identity of the 
two supposed species is that, broadly speaking, all the specimens 
obtained from March to September belong to the terricolor type, 
all those obtained from October to January belong to the 
longicaudatus type, while the February birds are somewhat 
intermediate. There are a very few exceptions to this gener- 
alization which I shall notice further on, but the mass of the 
evidence leads to the conclusion that the birds are identical, 
and that the two names merely indicate the summer and 
winter plumage and must both now merge in Sykes’ zwornatus. 
The only other alternative, open to us, is to suppose that 
both are migrants, the one replacing the other in the winter; 
but this, looking to all the circumstances of the case, appears 
scarcely possible. 
On the other hand, if we admit the identity of the two birds 
one great difficulty remains unexplained. Changes of color, 
in plamage and in bill, present no difficulties, but the tail in 
longicaudatus is markedly longer than in terricolor. Our very 
large series exhibits no indications of there being any general 
spring moult, vn the contrary, the bright rufous tint of the 
December longicaudatus appears to fade during February into the 
earthy brown of the summer terricolor. How then does it happen 
that the tail of the latter is so much shorter? It appears to me 
that in April and May the tail alone is moulted. In February 
and March the tails are mostly abraded so as to have lost all dark 
or light tippings, though a few specimens retain the rufous 
longicaudatus tail with the dark penultimate bands and _ pale 
rufescent tip, the tail contrasting strongly with the earthy 
brown of the upper surface. This is the case with a female killed 
onthe 12th March at Mogul Serai. In April all the tails are 
much abraded and have faded almost to the same color as the 
back, and though in one specimen the tail is still slightly ru- 
fescent, not one exhibits either dark spots or pale tippings. In 
May several specimens have perfectly new unabraded tails, short- 
er than those of the winter plumage, of a pure pale earthy brown ; 
» 
Da 
