OF NORTH-EASTERN CACHAR. 15 



the right side, and one similar feather on the left side newly 

 moulted and black ; abdomen, vent, sides, flanks, and tibial 

 plumes a deep ferruginous umber brown; lower tail-coverts 

 mingled this color and white. 



Now here is clearly the male moulting direct, from a plumage 

 totally different from what I have described as that of the 

 female, into the perfect adult. 



I have another bird precisely similar to this last, but rather 

 larger, tarsus 305 ; wing, 137, but without a single black 

 feather, without the upper tail-coverts of the adult which, in 

 this specimen, are white, with a great oval brown shaft spot near 

 the tip, and with the whole of the tail of the young type, namely, 

 pale drab brown with four broad, ill-marked, somewhat darker, 

 transverse bars. 



Lastly, I have one specimen also from Cachar which absolutely 

 baffles all my ingenuity to find a place for it. At first sight 

 it seems to be a young female corresponding with the stage of 

 the young males which I have just described. 



The upper surface is precisely similar, but, the primaries are 

 beginning to show a little grey, and the feathers of the head are 

 margiued paler ; the tarsus is 33 ; the sides of.the head throat, 

 and upper breast, are much as in the young males, but the 

 lower breast and rest of the lower parts are just like those of 

 the female, in a somewhat later stage, viz., white streaked with 

 a more or less rufescent clove brown. The wings and tail are 

 both so much abraded as to lead to the inference that the bird 

 was in bad case. Half the tail feathers are silvery grey 

 without any bars, but they are not new feathers, these even are 

 old and abraded ; the other half of the tail is grey brown with 

 darker bars ; this half of the tail is still more abraded and all the 

 feathers on this side are nearly an inch shorter than those on 

 the other, but the most remarkable thing here is that there 

 is just one new pure black scapular ! 



My own conviction is that this bird is a diseased female 

 (I only guess the sex by the tarsus) and that no conclusions 

 can be properly drawn from it, but still so little is as yet 

 known of the changes of plumage which this species under- 

 goes that I feel bound to record the peculiarities of this specimen. 



55.— Haliastur indus, Bodd. 



"The Brahminy Kite is very common throughout the year; 

 it breeds in March and April ; it generally fixes on a mango 

 or peepul tree, close to a village. — J. I/' 



58.— Baza lophotes, Cuv. 



"I came across three of these handsome birds one morning 

 in November 1875 in dense forest jungle ; they were in company 



