BIRDS OF UPPER PEGU. 33 



tipped white or rufous white, and with a moderately broad trans- 

 verse sub-terminal black band on both webs; the central and 

 other feathers exhibit two or three narrow, transverse, dark-brown 

 bars, and a few black spots, traces apparently of these, the one 

 about an inch, the other about two inches above the band just 

 described, and the third just below the tips of the coverts. The 

 whole of the mantle is a more or less rufous brown ; some of the 

 coverts, faintly mai'gined paler, and with a somewhat pale bar- 

 ring on the inner webs, and all the feathers with conspicuously 

 dark shafts. The lesser and median coverts are much browner 

 and less rufous, and very much as in Poliornis teesa, and are 

 more or less fringed with albescent. The longest scapulars are 

 brownish at the tips, bright chestnut above, and with traces of 

 grey brown bars : on the lower surface of the wing the tips of 

 the earlier primaries beyond the emai'ginations are grey, more 

 or less tinged with rufous, and exhibit on the inner webs only, 

 four or five more or less perfect transverse brown bars. The 

 primaries and secondaries are narrowly margined towards the 

 tips with dull white. The entire edge of the wing is white. 

 The lower surface of the tail is white, tinged pinkish, and with 

 the bars already described as present on the upper surface, showing 

 through, more or less distinctly. 



53.— Circus melanoleucus, Gm. 



Mr. Oates and Captain Feilden both sent specimens of males 

 and females of this species. Captain Feilden, who was aware 

 that both belonged to the same species, says : " Sexes appear 

 nearly the same size ; in fact, one male I got was larger than a 

 female ; the females are extremely common about Rangoon, more 

 so than at Thayetmyo, where this species is not veiy common." 

 Mr. Oates says : " Not uncommon at the end of the rains, and 

 during the cold- weather; frequents inundated land in preference to 

 any other. Near Poungday it is often found in the large plains of 

 mixed jungle and paddy land. I have never met with a female 

 amongst all those I have shot." This bird is commoner in the 

 Pe»u plains than in any part of Burmah I have yet traversed. 



This latter is natural enough, seeing that the female never, 

 I believe, assumes the black and white plumage. Mr. F. R. 

 Blewitt has dissected more than twenty black and white birds for 

 me, and found them all, without exception, males. Mr. Oates, 

 however, has sent me females of this species, sexed as such, but 

 he did not realize that they were the females of melanoleucus 

 and kept them separate as females of a species with which 

 he was not acquainted. The following are his dimensions and 

 remarks as to a male : — 



"Length: 17*8 ; expanse, 43; tail, from vent, 8'8; wing, 14; 

 bill, from gape, 11; tarsus, 3; cere, 0'37. 



