258 REMARKS ON SOME SPECIES OF THE 



I think we may, with considerable certainty, decide that our 

 Himalayan birds are quite distinct from the true alpestris, 

 Pall. 



L. melanOCriSSa, Rupp. (System. Uber. Vog\ N. o. 

 Afr. 17, t. 5, 1845) of Abyssinia might possibly occur in Sindh, 

 Kattiawar or Northern Guzerat, but I have never seen it from 

 India ; it is distinguishable at once by the adults having no 

 striae on the lower surface, none on the cheeks and face, by its 

 rufous anal band, and by the greater portion of the upper and 

 under tail-coverts being black, blue glossed. It has no white 

 on the outer tail-feathers. Length about 7'6 ; wing, 5 to 5*2; 

 tail, 4-1, fork about 2 to 2-1. 



L. rufllla, Tem. Is a name that cannot perhaps properly 

 stand. It was founded by Temrainck, (Manual d'Orn. 2nd Ed., 

 III., 298, 18-35) avowedly on Le Vaillant's Hirondelle llousse- 

 line, (Ois. d'Afr. V. pi. 245, f. 1.). Le Vaillant himself 

 describes the species thus : — 



u The top of the head black, and the upper part of the back 

 of the neck bright rufous, as is also the rump ; the mantle, 

 wings and tail (which latter is very forked, and of which the 

 external laterals are terminated in two narrow prolongations 

 and the median ones marked interiorly with a white spot,) are 

 of a shining bluish black, similar to that of our Chimney 

 Swallow ; the throat, the front of the neck, and the whole 

 lower part of the body, including the lower tail-coverts, are 

 a light rufous, deepening towards the vent, all the feathers 

 of these parts having blackish shafts ; the feet are a yellowish 

 brown ; the irid.es bright chestnut ; the bill black. 



" The female is like the male, except that she has the whole 

 top of the head red, and that the longer feathers of her tail are 

 less prolonged thau in the male/' 



Accepting this as his text, identifying Gmelin's H. capensis 

 (S. N., I./1019, No. 19, founded on Buffon's Hirondelle a tete 

 rousse du Cap de Bonne Esperance, P. E., 723, f. 2) with it, re- 

 jecting this name as inapplicable to a bird that had been found 

 in Europe, TemmincK translated Le Vaillant's name into rufula, 

 and while copying that author's description of the female, 

 proceeded to give an original description of the so-called male, 

 founded probably on a specimen obtained in Sicily. 



What Le Vaillant's male Ronsseline may have been no 

 one knows. Sundevall thinks it was a manufactured bird, 

 but he is rather fond of solving all difficulties thus. Most 

 certainly it was not the bird now commoly known as rufula, 

 Tem. 



