BIRDS OF UPPER PEGU. Ill 



like the tufts of the Crossoptilon, though of course the feathers 

 are of a totally different texture, being in this case stiff, sharp- 

 pointed, linear, lanceolate in shape. The sides of the neck, imme- 

 diately below this white stripe, and the upper back just at 

 the base of the neck, black, being in fact a continuation of the 

 central head streak, which, as already mentioned, broadens out on 

 the nape. The entire mantle, rump, and upper tail coverts, very 

 rich, rufescent, olive brown, with a sort of burnished glow 

 almost golden on the upper back ; many of the feathers, but not 

 very conspicuously, paler shafted ; one or two feathers of the 

 upper back, nearest the black, with a distinct black fringe at 

 their margins ; and almost all the feathers of the interscapulary 

 region with a fainter-marked darker marginal fringe. The tail 

 feathers, secondaries, and tertiaries, plain, slightly rufescent, olive 

 brown, the two latter margined slightly more rufescent. Pri- 

 maries and their greater coverts, blackish brown ; the former, with 

 a broad buffy bar at their bases, and paling at their tips to 

 much the same shade as the rest of the quills. The rest of the 

 greater and median coverts, of the same tint as the tertiaries, 

 broadly tipped with bright buff (with occasionally a very narrow 

 fringe of black beyond this) , preceded by a broader or narrower, 

 more or less perfect, black bar. 



The chin and a spot on the upper throat, pure white. From 

 the edge of the lower mandible, about opposite the middle of 

 the lores, a narrow black stripe descends from either side towards 

 the base of the throat, slanting inwards so as to divide the 

 throat into three nearly equal divisions. The whole of the 

 throat between these two lines, and between these and the black 

 ear coverts, pale buff ; the feathers (many of them very narrowly 

 and almost obsoletely), fringed with black. 



The breast, abdomen, and sides are a warm, somewhat ferrugi- 

 nous, brown ; the sides and flanks, tinged with olivaceous ; and 

 all the feathers of these, as well as of the breast, exhibiting a 

 more or less perfect or imperfect black bar not far from the tip. 

 The bar is generally very perfect and conspicuous on the sides 

 and flanks, but on the breast they are mostly reduced to double 

 spots or even to a spot on one web, and very few of them are 

 visible until the feathers are lifted. The lower tail coverts are 

 what I should call a pale salmon vermillion ; the centre of the 

 abdomen is slightly paler ; the edge of the wing and the carpal 

 joint is buffy with very narrow, almost obsolete, transverse dusky 

 bars. The wing lining, except the primary lower greater covei'ts 

 (which are a grey brown like the under surface of the quills), 

 are, like the patch at the base of the primaries, buff-colored. 



As regards the structural affinities of this bird, I must 

 admit that, as Mr. Blyth says, the bill has no perceptible notch ; 

 the rictal vibrissa? are also inconspicuous, but not more so, I 



