AND NOTES ON VARIOUS SPECIES FOUND THERE. 199 



The dimensions of this bird are* : — length, 91 inch ; wing, 

 4'6 ; tarsus, 0"5 ; mid toe with claw, 0*8 ; bill across gape, 1*4 

 •wide ; gape to tip, 1*4. The iris was yellow ; bill greenish brown ; 

 feet fleshy grey ; ends of toes darker. The general plumage above 

 is sepia and rufous brown, mottled with black and white, darkest 

 on the head and most rufous on the wing-coverts ; the feathers 

 of the head have terminal black spot with the extreme tip white ; 

 loral plumes rufous, with dark bars ; a whitish supercilium ; 

 the scapulars have the outer webs whitish buff finely mottled with 

 black, and having the appearance of two broad longitudinal 

 stripes ; tertials mostly silvery grey, mottled dark with a ter- 

 minal arrow-headed spot, followed by an extreme white tip ; 

 the wing-coverts mottled rufous and black, with a large termi- 

 nal white spot, bordered by a black anterior edge ; primaries 

 dark brown with marginal fulvous spots and with the tips 

 mottled ; tail with alternate fulvous and grey bands, the whole 

 finely mottled and with a dark dividing transverse mark at 

 every two bands ; beneath the throat and chest tawny, mottled 

 and cross-rayed with brown and with a white band across the 

 throat ; the feathers with the white spots having a transverse 

 anterior black border to them ; breast paling to greyish, mottled 

 brown and with a white terminal spot on the feathers at the side 

 of that part ; tibial plumes fulvous, with narrow cross rays ; 

 abdomen fulvous. 



147.— Palseornis eupatrius, Linn. (62.) 



The genus Palceornis is exciting particular attention at the 

 present moment. I therefore subjoin a few particulars regarding 

 our Ceylonese birds. 



I do not think the question of inferiority in size in our 

 insular birds can be quite considered a settled matter, for 

 I have seen in the Western Province of this island enormous 

 birds flying high over my head and always unfortunately 

 out of range ; they were, curiously enough, always single ; but 

 of course this was only a coincidence, and could not be ac- 

 cepted as a reason for thinking that there were two species 

 of large parakeets here. Last year I shot several examples 

 in a hitherto unexplored part of the south coast of the island, 

 which, I am sure, were smaller than many I had seen previously 

 on the wing. The wing of a male of one of these measures 

 8 inches, but the tail was much abraded, and I am unable to say 

 even approximately what the normal length was ; with regard 

 to the mandibular stripe in this example, it is by no means 

 ill-defined or narrow, measuring 0*3" at the widest part, and 

 running out into a fine point on the anterior edge of the rose 



* This appears to me to be clearly B. punctatus, Nobis, S. F., Vol II., p. 354. — 

 Ed., S. F. 



