BIRDS OF UPPER PEGU. 155 



" The bill was deep black ; the under side of the lower mandible, 

 dark horny ; the inside of the mouth, dusky fleshy ; the irides, 

 brown ; the eyelids, grey ; legs, pinkish fleshy ; claws, horny. 



" The female measured — 



" Length, 5-2 ; expanse, 7*7 ; tail, from vent, 1-85 ; wing, 2*3 ; 

 bill, from gape, 0*54; tarsus, - 78. 



" The lower mandible and the edges of the upper were pale 

 fleshy horny ; the remainder of the upper mandible, dark brown ; 

 the inside of the mouth, fleshy ; the rest as in the male." 



In this species the bills are shorter and proportionally deeper 

 than in any of our other Indian birds species. 



In breeding plumage the male has the forehead, top, and back 

 of the neck, rump, and upper tail coverts, breast, abdomen, sides, 

 flanks, and lower tail coverts a bright gamboge yellow, only the 

 central portion of the upper breast just below its junction with 

 the blackish throat slightly tinged with brownish orange. The 

 feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, dusky at 

 base, and broadly fringed with dark yellow. The wings are 

 hair brown, all the feathers narrowly margined with white. In 

 some specimens the brown is almost black, and the longest ter- 

 tiary and one or two of the later secondaries are margined with 

 pale yellow, instead of white. The tail is hair brown, in some 

 blackish brown, excessively narrowly margined (chiefly at the tips 

 and on the outer webs towards their bases) with yellowish white. 

 The lores, cheeks, ear coverts, chin, and throat are black ; the 

 lowest feathers of all, where the black meets the yellow, are more 

 or less tipped with that color ; traces of a narrow, yellow, man- 

 dibular stripe, from the inferior angle of the lower mandible, 

 more apparent in some specimens than in others ; axillaries, pure 

 white or nearly so ; edge of the wing and wing lining, very pale 

 fulvous or buff. 



I have never myself shot this bird, and do not know there- 

 fore what the non-breeding plumage of the male may be, nor do 

 I know whether the female assumes the yellow plumage. The 

 female shot by Mr. Oates at the same time as the male in 

 breeding plumage, and which may be a young one, though I do 

 not think so, is, except so far as the bill is proportionally broader 

 and deeper, an exact miniature of the female Ploceus baya } and 

 agrees with this feather for feather. 



698.— Munia atricapUla, VieiL 



Mr. Oates says : " This species is common ; it affects elephant 

 grass and swampy places in preference/'' 



Unfortunately the only specimen sent by Mr. Oates was 

 entirely destroyed. I have no Upper Pegu specimens by me, but 

 examples from Tenasserim do not differ from Indian ones. 



