174 A FIRST LIST OF THE 



824 quat.— Arborophila brunneopectus, Tickell, 

 (Jouenal, Asiatic Society, 1855, p. 277). 



Mr. Oates says : " This bird and the next ( A. chloropus) are 

 equally common in densely-wooded ravines and nullahs of the 

 Evergreen Forests on the eastern slopes of the Pegu Hills. I have 

 never met with the two in the same valley, each species appearing 

 to occupy one stream to the exclusion of the other ;. they may 

 occasionally straggle to the western slopes, but this must be the 

 case rarely, as I never came across them ; in fact, the jungle is 

 not adapted to them, being spare and dry. Westward, the range 

 of this and the next species (chloropus) does not, I think, extend to 

 the Arracan Hills, as all the many specimens of Arbor icola which 

 I have procured there belong to another species (A. intermedia, 

 Blyth) . As I found both brunneopectus and chloropus at the foot 

 of the hills near Tonghoo, it is more than probable that they 

 also extend eastward of the Sittang.* The males are rather 

 larger than the females, but they do not differ, I can positively 

 assert, in plumage or in the color of the soft parts. Their food 

 appears to consist of hard seeds, but in one instance I found a 

 beetle in the stomach of one of them. They breed, I judge, in 

 May. I never heard a call in the forest which I could identify 

 as proceeding from this bird or the next. I believe both to be 

 particularly silent. I have occasionally seen them in the bed of 

 a nullah, where they were probably either bathing or dusting 

 themselves. 



11 Males measured: Length, 11-25 ; expanse, 18; tail, from 

 vent, 2-5 ; tarsus, 1*85 ; bill, from gape, 1*0. 



"Females measured: Length, 10 to 10*7; expanse, 17'75; wing, 

 5"15 ; tail, from vent, 2-4 ; bill, from gape, - 98 ; tarsus, 1*7. 



" Bill, black ; eyelids and patch behind the eye, red, more or less 

 naked ; skin of throat, deeper red ; iris, dark brown ; legs and 

 claws, orange ; some specimens have the legs tinged with lake. 

 In some specimens the skin of the throat shows through a great 

 deal more than in others." 



This species was first described from specimens sent by Tickell 

 from Moulmein, and obtained by him in the mountains of the 

 northern part of Tenasserim. 



Mr. Blyth at the time remarked as follows in regard to them : — 



" A. brunneopectus has the breast and flanks tawnyish brown, 

 instead of ashy, with no admixture of ferruginous on the latter, 

 which are spotted quite differently from those of any of the 

 other species, each feather having a large rounded white spot, 



* As a fact, both extend eastward of the Salween, where (as near Pahpoon 

 chloropus is very common. -Mr. Oates remarks that he has never heard the cal 

 of this latter species, so I may mention that it is very like that of the Grey 

 Partridge.— A. 0. H. 



