NOTES ON SOME BURMESE BIRDS. 343 



go away for a few months. It very possibly docs so, for from 

 June to October the whole country which it frequents in the dry 

 weather is covered with two or three feet of water, rendering 

 even rice cultivation possible only in a few limited tracts. I 

 have shot it during all the months of the dry weather. It 

 breeds commonly, but I have not been able to find the 

 finished nest. On the 26th April I observed a pair build- 

 ing ; the female collecting the materials and carrying to the 

 nest, while the male walked about near her, occasionally rising 

 a few feet into the air with a short song. The male, like the Eng- 

 lish bird, soars singing till it is nearly, if not quite, out of sight. 



I give the dimensions of numerous birds : — Males — Length, 

 6*5 to 6 6 ; expanse, 11*3 to 12'0 ; tail, from vent, 0, 2 to 

 2*35 ; wing, 3'45 to 3 - 5 ; tarsus, *98 to 1 03 ; bill, from gape, 

 "65 to *75; hind claw, '53 to '6o. Females. — Length, G'05 to 6 - 5 r 

 expanse, 11*0 to 11*5 ; tail, 21 to 22 ; wing, 31 to 3 - 3 ; tarsus, 

 1-02 to 1-06 ; bill from gape, -61 to 76 ; hind claw, -51 to '55. 



Looking to the measurements given by Messrs. Sharpe and 

 Dresser of A. gulgula in their ' Birds of Europe,' the Pegu 

 bird, while it has a much shorter wing, has a tarsus nearly one- 

 tenth of an inch longer, and occasionally rather more. 



It is curious that a Lark, if identical with any Indian race, 

 should occur in a limited area in the Sittang valley and not be 

 found in any portion of the extensive Irrawaddy valley lying 

 between India and the Sittang River. Of some birds I seut to 

 Mr. Hume, he writes : — ci I call these A. gulgula. If you 

 like you may make a new species of them ; Brooks would, 

 I consider that they ought to stand as A. gulgula.'''' 



Though, no doubt, merely a variety of gulgula it will be con- 

 venient to give the Pegu bird a name to distinguish it from 

 the numerous other varieties ; and having regard to its very 

 limited locality immediately round the town of Pegu, I will 

 term it peguensis* 



811 ter. — Euplocamus Cuvieri, Temm. 



I have never myself shot the Arrakanese Silver Pheasant, 

 but I have now seen some six specimens, and in all of them 

 the characters which distinguish it from lineatus are constant. I 

 cannot think it is a hybrid f between Horsfieldii and lineatus. If 

 it originally sprung from a cross between these two species, it has 



*Theso Indian Larks are just like the Brambles and Willows (Ruins, Salix) that wo 

 used to squabble over at home iu my boyhood. It would be well if Mr. Oates had pointed 

 out the precise points of difference on which he relies. Those referred to, viz., small dif- 

 ferences in the size of wing and tarsus, are worthless, as he would sec at once after 

 examining fifty specimens from any one locality in India. — Ed., S. I\ 



f Vide ante p. 166 — and as to iuv views in regard to so-called hybrids, see page 

 460, vol. IL— Ed. 



2 U 



