44 A FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS 



while sometimes parts of the outer webs of even the cen- 

 tral tail feathers are blackish ; the lower tail-coverts are gene- 

 rally deep brown, almost blackish in some, tinged strongly 

 with ferruginous in others. The quills are brown, darker on 

 the inner webs tinged with olive, or ruddy olive on the outer 

 webs, always most rufescent on the secondaries and tertiaries, 

 very often quite plain, at other times very finely and incon- 

 spicuously speckled towards the tips of the tertiaries and some 

 of the secondaries with a lighter tint ; the central tail fea- 

 thers are perhaps most generally plain, but in many specimens 

 they are very finely vermicilated, chiefly on the inner webs, 

 where they are usually paler, with dusky. Very often the tips 

 of the crest feathers are much more rufescent than the rest of 

 the head. These birds are so extremely variable that no two 

 of them appear to be exactly alike. 



The females are somewhat smaller than the males, but I have 

 no measurements of these recorded in the flesh. 



812.— Gallus ferrugineus, Gm. 



"The common jungle fowl is very common. It breeds 

 throughout the whole summer. — J. I/' 



824 bis.— Arboricola atrogularis, Blyth. 



tl This partridge is not uncommon on the hills ; it is seldom 

 seen except in dense jungle. It remains all the year. — J. 1/' 



This species which we only as yet know of from the west- 

 ern portions of Assam, Sy lhet, Cachar and Tipperah (though 

 it is said to have occurred in Chittagong) has been already 

 noticed in the short key to our eight Indian species of Ar- 

 boricolas or Arborophilas (Vol II., p. 449), but it may be as well 

 to give a detailed description of the species here, as it is not 

 included in Dr. Jerdon's work. 



Length, 11 ; wing, 5 "5 to nearly 6; tarsus, 1*5 to 1*7; bill 

 from gape, 0'9 to 1*0 ; tail, "2*25 to 2*5. Bill, black ; the legs 

 and leet appear to have been orange fleshy ; a large bare or~ 

 bital space, red. 



The lores and lines running from them, over and below 

 the bare eye space, behind which they meet and run down 

 on either side of the nape, black. A band from the base of 

 the lower mandible running backwards over cheeks and ear- 

 coverts white, the posterior portion often tinged buffy. The 

 forehead grey. A line on either side of the forehead imme- 

 diately above the black line first described runuing backwards 

 with it on either side of the nape, white anteriorly, buffy 

 posteriorly ; crown and occiput greyish olive, each feather with 

 a black shaft streak expanding at the tip into a nail-head spot ; 



