LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 329 



Then as regards the head of the female, the shape of the 

 spots is variable in all the species of this genus, but as a rule 

 both in intermedins and rubropygialis they appear to be usually 

 linear and not round at all. 



As for Malherbe's specimen with the wing only 4f, it was 

 clearly immature. Out of five rubropygialis the smallest has a 

 wing of 5*2 ; and this also is about the minimum of intermedius. 

 I may add that intermedius from Arakan, Moulmein, Tavoy, 

 and the Pakchan Estuary are identical with those shot in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Tenasserim town, and that in 

 Pegu and further north there seem to be traces of intermedius 

 grading into Shorii, Vigors. 



I have no undoubted specimens of the Sumatran species by 

 me, nor have I at present available for comparison any speci- 

 men from the Straits, and I am unable therefore to say whether 

 these latter differ, but I am very decidedly of opinion at present 

 that the southern Indian rubropygialis and the Burmese inter- 

 medius are identical. 



Having at last obtained a copy of N. A. Severtsov's 

 Vertikalnoe i horizontalnce raspredlenie Turkestanskikh jevotnikh, 

 published in the Izviestia impera torskavo obstchestva lionvetelei, 

 estestvoznania anthopologii i ethnograpkn, (vide Stray Feathers, 

 Vol. II., 514). I regret to say that I am not much wiser than 

 I was before. It is written entirely in Russian and printed in 

 the Russian character, and though 1 have attacked the language, 

 I have not yet made sufficient progress to understand two conse- 

 cutive sentences. I have, however, discovered one important 

 point from the plates to wit that my Stoliczkana stoliczkos, has 

 already been named by Severtsov, Leptopmcile sophice. I don't 

 think that publications in Russian should count ! 



fetters to tje tibita. 



Sir, 



I do not know if there is any record of Palceomis 

 sivalensis (alexandri apud J erd.) breeding in these parts, but 

 I do not see any mention of it in your " Nests and Eggs/' so I 

 write to let you know that this morning I found a nest of a 

 pair that had built in a hole in an old ' Bakhain' tree. 



There were four well-grown young birds, quite unmistake- 

 able Alexandrines, about two weeks' old. 



I saw the old male sitting outside the hole and the old female 

 came out as the boy was swarming up the tree. I regret I 



