188 REMARKS ON THE GENUS PERICROCOTUS. 



affmis, Mc.Clell, P. Z. S., 1839, 157, (the supposed <J only, 

 winch = ? brevirostris. 



We now have to deal with the typical sub-group ; all the spe- 

 cies hitherto dealt with are more or less aberrant; and although 

 in some of these we have found the number of plain primaries 

 somewhat variable, in the typical sub-group we shall find it an 

 absolute constant. 



I have examined 73 specimens of this species ; in these in no 

 case had either male or female a red or yellow patch on the 

 outer webs of either of the first four primaries, but in 7 males 

 out of 46, there was a red or reddish hair line on the margin 

 of the fourth primary. In every case the males and females had 

 a conspicuous patch on the outer webs of the fifth and succeed- 

 ing primaries. 



I have already noticed on more than one occasion the much 

 greater intensity of colour exhibited by Sikhim, Assamese and 

 Northern Tenasserim specimens. The colour in the male varies 

 from a dull scarlet in the far west to the deepest crimson scarlet 

 on the east. 



The dimensions also in this species vary more I think than 

 in any other of the genus. The total length varies from 7*5 

 to 8 - 5 ; the tail from 3*75 to 4'5. Wings varied as follows : — 



^' s _3.4 ; 3.7. 3-5; 3-65; 35 ; 3-63; 3-5; 3.56; 3'45 ; 

 3'65; 3 6; 37. 



?'s— 3-5; 3-5; 361; 35 ; 3'67 ; 35; 3'65 ; 3-55; 3'69 ; 

 3-55; 3-5; 358; 3-6. 



All the smallest birds are eastern and dark coloured. The 

 female has the chin and throat pale dull yellow ; in some speci- 

 mens, especially those killed in the plains in the cold season, 

 these parts might more properly be designated dull white, 

 tinged with yellow. 



This species abounds in summer throughout the lower better 

 wooded ranges of the Himalayas, south of the first great 

 snowy range, from Eastern Cashmere to Bhotan, at elevations 

 of 3,000 to 7,000 feet. Westwards and eastwards of these 

 limits, I have not yet personally ascertained its occurrence. 

 During the cold season it is found in all the lower valleys and 

 throughout the sub-montane tracts, and immense numbers visit 

 the plains of the N.-W. Provinces, Oudh, the Punjaub and 

 Central Provinces and Rajpootaua, and the drier northern por- 

 tions of Bengal. As a rule, they avoid the very barren and de- 

 sert and the very humid tracts like the plains of Lower Bengal, 

 keeping to open, well-cultivated, and drained and fairly -wood- 

 ed country. I do not as yet know of its occurrence in Kutch, 

 Kattiawar or Sindh, but it occurs at Mount Aboo and in Nor- 

 thern Guzerat. Jerdon got it, he says, at Goomsur, but this is 



