REMARKS ON THE GENUS IORA. 439 



On the east centre, and I believe east (at any rate as far 

 east as Baipoor) of the northern limits of the zeylonica form, 

 appears at Nagpoor, Saugor, Jhansi, Jubbulpoor, Seonee and 

 Kaipoor, and, doubtless throughout wide tracts not yet defined, 

 another race of which the females seem to be always a shade 

 duller and paler than any from any other localities, and of which 

 the males never exhibit any black during the non-breedino- sea- 

 son, being then precisely similar to Calcutta birds, but which, 

 during the breeding season, have a great deal of black, quite as 

 much as some Ceylon males, though never so much as the fullest 

 plumaged ones, on the upper parts, and while their tails show 

 no affinity to nigrolutea, exhibit their relationship to this species 

 by the great amount of bright yellow that they show on the 

 upper back. 



Individual specimens from other localities, both iu Southern 

 India and the Malay Peninsular, show something of this, but 

 nothing to the extent to which it is exhibited by all breeding 

 males from the localities above indicated. 



Those who persist in maintaining zeylonica and tiphia, <fcc. as 

 distinct, must equally distinguish this race uuder some name 

 which they must assign, as it is nameless as yet, but mv own 

 view is opposed to any such separation. 



How far north this race extends, and whether it quite reaches 

 to the coast on the East, is still uncertain. 



But, so far as I can judge from Sumbulpoor, Bustar, and Jey- 

 poor ( of Vizagapatam) specimens, this race wears itself out 

 eastward, — some of the specimens from these localities exhibiting 

 its characteristics in a more or less marked form, and others 

 scarcely at all. The only specimen examined from Hazaree- 

 bagh is typical, tiphia and so are all the Chota Nagpoor speci- 

 mens, the males of which show that the tiphia type of coloration 

 prevails there. 



At Calcutta we have the typical tiphia ; but even here the birds 

 are, by no means, invaribly true to type ; in many cases they 

 show a very perceptible amount of black patching-, and in some few 

 cases a great amount of black. In Dehra Dhoon, Oudh. Behar 

 Hazareebagh, Chota Nagpoor, the Bhotan Dooars, Jessore Dacca 

 Commilla, the Garrow Hills, and Suddya in Assam (and probably 

 in the whole intervening regions, but I only speak of what I have 

 seen), the birds are similar to Calcutta ones ; but it seems to me that 

 the further north you go, the less tendency there is to deviate 

 from the typical tiphia. Certainly, iu a large series from 

 Northern Behar, shot from April to August, there were very 

 much fewer and less marked deviations from type than in a 

 similar series from Calcutta. 



