122 NOTES. 



I have often wondered whether the specific name given by 

 Dr. Jerdon, (B. of I. Vol., II, p. 304) for the Cashmere, or Many- 

 spotted Nutcracker, viz., multimaeulata, was a mere slip of the 

 pen, or had previously been used by any other writer, Jerdon 

 attributes it to Gould, but Gould's origiual name was multi- 

 punctata, (P. Z. S. February, 1849) and under that name he 

 figured it (B. of As., Pt. l.,"pl. 17). Of course it must stand as 

 nmltipunctata, but had Dr. Jerdon any authority for the name 

 he uses ? 



I think that our Himalayan Red Honey-sucker, or Goal- 

 parah Sun Bird, commonly known as vEthopyga miles, Hodgs, 

 must certainly stand henceforth as JElhopyga seherke, Tick. 



I have been carefully re-reading- Tickell's original description 

 with a series of miles before me, and this description applies 

 perfectly to some specimens. In some birds the crown is 

 burnished copper with green reflections, and not the typical 

 emerald green. In some again, the belly and vent are dusky, 

 and not green. 



Then as to the locality, it is no matter of surprise to find 

 sin o-le specimens of purely Himalayan birds straying down in 

 the cold season, into suitable localities, quite as far from the 

 base of the Hills as Borabhum. Thus on the cliffs of the 

 Jumna at Etawah, I once shot a specimen of Tichodroma muraria, 

 and again in the great Bamboo clumps at Bhurey in the same 

 district I shot Oreocincla dauma. Moreover, single specimens 

 of this present species have been shot and sent me from near 

 Allahabad, from the banks of the Soane in the Mirzapoor district, 

 and from the station itself of Purneah. 



Tickell's bird must have been a straggler, and cannot have re- 

 presented a distinct local species, or other examples of it must 

 have been procured, by Ball, Beavan, Blewitt, aud many others 

 who have collected in this enceinte. It cannot have been Vigorsi, 

 because the yellow strias on the breast could never have escaped 

 Tickell, and because if it had been Vigorsi, specimens of this 

 latter must have turned up in the vast region intermediate 

 between the ghats and Borabhum, (large tracts of the most 

 suitable country of which have been exhaustively worked) in 

 all of which the stragglers from the far west and south, such as 

 Myiophoneus Horsfieldi, Harpactes fasciatus, Bnceros coronatus 

 have been duly observed. 



I am quite aware that Dr. Jerdon thought that he had, in 

 former years, obtained Vigorsi in the Bustar country, but I 

 could not find out that he had preserved any specimen ; he 

 certainly was not familiar with the bird of which no museum 

 in India contained specimens, even I believe when he wrote his 



