WITH ADDITIONS, TO THE AVIFAUNA OF THE ISLAND. 3G7 



The following is a description of a male example of this species 

 which I procured eight miles from Trincomalie, in forest on the 

 26th of last January. Length, 5*5; wing, 2*8; tail, 2*2; tarsus, 

 0*55; mid-toe, 04; its claw straight 019 : bill to gape, 0*75. 

 Iris hazel ; bill, upper mandible dark brown with pale tip ; 

 under mandible fleshy yellow; legs and feet pale yellow, 

 claws light reddish grey ; lores, a circle round the eye 

 and just beneath the gape white ; the orbital circle incomplete 

 above the lores ; head and upper part of hind neck dark olive 

 brown, changing into the rusty olivaceous of the back, which 

 becomes ferruginous on the rump ; wings dark brown ; the 

 coverts and tertials rather conspicuously edged with yellowish 

 ferruginous ; the quills have a fine edging of the same, as like- 

 wise the tail, which is of a lighter brown ; chin and throat 

 white, bounded on each side by a dark check patch ; the chest is 

 brownish, edged fulvous, and the breast and under tail-coverts 

 white ; the flanks light yellowish brown, and the under wing- 

 coverts edged with the same color as the upper. 



In the absence of Mr. Layard's specimen it is impossible to 

 say whether this is Butalis muttui, A. ferrugineus apud Jerdon. 

 If new I should propose to style it A.jlavipes, but in the mean- 

 time something must be done towards finding out what B. 

 muttui really was. 



372 ter.— Oreocincla spiloptera, Bhjth. (135.) 



In 1873, I discovered this Thrush affecting the low country 

 forests between Trincomalie and Anoradjapura and secured its 

 nest and eggs, which latter have not yet been published that 

 I am aware of. The Ceylon Spotted Thrush up to this time had 

 only been known from the upland districts, but since this date 

 it has been found to be common in the Western Province low 

 districts, as many as four having been shot in one morning 

 within 12 miles of Colombo. The nest, which I found near a 

 stream in some fine forest 15 miles from Trincomalie, was 

 built in the fork of a small sapling about 3^ feet from the 

 ground, and resembles that of a Blackbird iu structure, having 

 a loose exterior of small twigs with a lining of grasses. The 

 interior was tolerably well finished and rather deep. The eggs 

 were two in number, of a bluish green ground freckled and 

 spotted, mostly at the obtuse end, with light red and reddish 

 grey over lilac grey spots. 



390 bis.— Alcippe nigrifrons, Blyth. (137.) 



After finding hundreds of the curious dry-leaf structures, 

 mentioned in the Ibis, 1874, p. 19*, entirely void of contents, 



* The eggs supposed here to belong to this bird, I have since identified as those 

 of Dwnetia alboyularis, called also Batechia by the Singhalese. 



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