438 REMARKS ON THE GENUS IORA. 



Between these two extremes all possible intermediate forms 

 exist. 



Even in Ceylon and the extreme south of the Indian and Ma- 

 lay Peninsulars (where alone, to the best of my belief, what I call, 

 the truly typical zeylonica plumage ever occurs, ) by no means 

 all, probably by no means the majority, of breeding males assume 

 it. It may be a sign of special vigor, or of age, I cannot sa}^, 

 but judging from all the specimens I have seen, I should say that, 

 in Ceylon itself, a considerable proportion always retain a certain 

 admixture of black-shaded green on crown, or nape, or back, 

 not unfrequently on all, more often on one or other of these 

 parts. 



Again at Calcutta, the typical tiphia plumage seems to be 

 by no means constant. A good many males have more or less 

 patching, or more properly mottling, of black on the back. 

 Blyth records (J. A. S. B. XIII, 381) a specimen with the 

 binder half of the crown black. I have seen one with nearly the 

 same amount of black on the crown ; another with nearly the 

 entire back black, and several with large black patches there. 



Ifyou start from Ceylon and work northwards through 

 Travancore, Tiuivelli, Madura, the Pulneys, Nilghiris, the 

 Wynaad, Mysore, &c, as far north at any rate as the valley of 

 the Taptee* and Hoshungabad, on the west and centre of the 

 Peninsular (how far north it reaches on the eastern side of the 

 Peninsular I do not yet know), you find the immense majority 

 of the birds more or less of the zeylonica type, the males 

 putting on as a rule a great deal of black during the breeding 

 season, but the amount of this diminishing on the average, 

 it seems to me, as you work northwards, and being never 

 (so far as I know) found in its full uniformity except in 

 the extreme south. Even here, however, males breeding in the 

 typical tiphia plumage may be met with. 



Further than this, so far as I can judge, in the extreme 

 south the majority of the males retain more or less black about 

 them even in the winter (though in Ceylon itself many males 

 occur at that season ^indistinguishable from Calcutta ones); 

 but as you proceed northwards, males of the latter type be- 

 come commonest. 



On the west and west-centre of the northern limit of this 

 type, it is bounded by a distinct species, nigrolutea, distin- 

 guishable at once by the grey or white-tipped tails, the males 

 of which, in breeding plumage, are further distinguished by 

 their brilliant yellow collar, sharply defining the black cap. 



* The zei/loniea type occurs also at Mount Aboo, but as an outlier ; in the plains 

 below the species is nigral at ea. 



