BIRDS OF UPPER PEGU. 23 



insects, which it catches on the wing", very much as a Bee- 

 eater would. It generally returns to the same perch several 

 times. The following- are dimensions and colors of the soft 

 parts : — 



" Hales : length, 6*3 ; expanse, 12 to 12 - 3 ; tail, from vent, 

 2'5 to 2*6; wing-, 3*8; bill, from gape to point, 0'43; tarsus, 

 0-92. Females : length, 7"2 to 7*3. The bill is slaty blue, nearly 

 black at tip ; cere, dark brown ; iris, pale reddish brown ; inside 

 of mouth, bluish fleshy ; eyelids, bluish grey ; feet, bluish brown, 

 darker on toes and yellowish on soles ; claws, black." 



Wings of females appear to vary from 4" 1 to 4* 3; wings of 

 males, from 377 to 3" 97. Adults appear to have a broad frontal 

 and superciliary band continued round the nape, and a stripe 

 under the eye, ptcre white ; chin, bright rufous ; and whole lower 

 parts, more or less tinged rufous. Immature birds have the 

 frontal and superciliary band much narrower ; and this, with the 

 strip under the eye, is bright rufous; the collar is rufous 

 white, while the chin and whole lower parts (except lower abdo- 

 men, vent, and tibial plumes, which are rufous) are pure 

 white. 



In one specimen, for instance, which I take to be an old bird, 

 there is a huge broad white frontal band, nearly 0*4 in breadth ; 

 from this extend broad supercilia of the same color, fully 0*15 

 in width above the eyes, running down unbroken, over the ear 

 coverts, widening as they go, and joining* on the one hand 

 the white of the sides of neck, and on the other hand a broad, 

 # 4 wide, half-collar of the same color. The cheeks are the 

 same color, but the chin and the upper part of the throat are 

 bright chestnut. 



In another bird, a young" bird as I believe, the frontal band 

 is not above 01 in width, and is pale chestnut. It does not join 

 the supercilia, which again above the eye are only 005 in width 

 and scarcely wider elsewhere, and are also pale chestnut, and 

 which running down mere narrow lines, still of this pale chestnut 

 hue, join into a very narrow (0*15 broad) rufous- white half -collar. 

 Immediately under the eye there is a tiny pale chestnut patch, 

 but the whole of the chin, throat, and breast, are pure silky 

 white. 



Many birds, killed in the autumn as a rule, I think, are inter- 

 mediate between these two well-marked stages, a little tinge o£ 

 rufous only may remain on the brow, and the chin may still be 

 quite white, or again the eyebrow may be quite white, and 

 there may as yet be only a faint ruf escent tinge on the chin, or 

 sometimes, but this, I think, is very rare ; both chin and eyebrow 

 may entirely want the rufous tinge. I have only to add that 

 birds from Pegu appear to be precisely identical with those 

 from Kumaon, Nepal, and Sikhim. 



