108 NOVELTIES. 



Each feather shafted whitish. Remiges and centre pair of 

 rectiices reddish clay brown. Rest of tail dusky sepia, more 

 and more tipt, white externally ; chin, throat and all under parts 

 ashy white. 



The only one of the species observed." 



Now our bird, (also as will have been observed a male,) has 

 a longer bill, a longer wing, a longer tarsus. Its tail is consi- 

 derably shorter, and it is not graduated. 



Again the tail has no white on it. The upper surface is in 

 no sense a grey brown, the feathers are not pale shafted, and 

 the chin, throat, upper breast and sides are conspicuously streak- 

 ed with black or dusky brown. 



Therefore, although obtained in the same district (though at a 

 much higher elevation, 6,000 feet) our bird is clearly not 

 Bly th's Ixiulus striatus. 



But then is the Himalayan Bird ? 



No doubt this latter has the tail much graduated and tipped 

 with white, just as described, and a good many of the feathers 

 of the upper surface are pale shafted and the lower surface is 

 stre.akless; the dimensions of bill, wing and tail too agree, but 

 the cap is grey, contrasting, as a rule, strongly with the oliva- 

 ceous, not ashy brown of the rest of the upper surface, and 

 the ear-coverts form a conspicuous dull ferruginous patch, 

 each feather shafted paler rufescent, and the lower parts are 

 brownish and not ashy white. I do not believe that these 

 feathers could have escaped both Tickell and Blyth, and I 

 therefore believe that we have still to find the real J. striatus of 

 Blyth. 



I cannot discover that Hodgson ever published any descrip- 

 tion of the Himalayan bird, and therefore I propose for it pro- 

 visionally (i. e. pending further elucidation of what Blyth's 

 species actually was or is) the name of Ixulus rufigenis. 



As a guide to the real striatus, note what Tickell says of the 

 reddish clay brown colour of the quills and centre tail feathers; 

 not a trace of any such tint is observable in either humilis or 

 rufigenis. 



Megalaima Davisoni. 



Precisely similar to M. asiatica, but somewhat smaller ; entirely wants the 

 black crown band and to a great extent the narrow yellowish line 

 preceding it, and has these replaced by a broader turquoise blue band, 

 thus diminishing the depth of the occipital red patch; pectoral red 

 patches rather larger. 



This is another representative form of the Tenasserim Central 

 Hills ; just as 31. Ramsayi (which is very common at Mooly- 



