480 NOTES ON SOME BIRDS IN MR. MANDELLl'S COLLECTION 



smaller bill and feet. The following description may serve to 

 identify the species should it be found within Indian limits. 



Whole head above and nape black; lores., sides of head, below 

 the eye and the hind-neck immediately behind the black nape 

 white, the last passing" at once into the ashy grey of the whole 

 mantle ; primary quills with white shafts, except near the 

 tip ; first primary with the outer web black, inner web dusky 

 near the shaft with a broad white inner margin ; the tip of both 

 webs dusky ; the second quill has the outer web ashy grey, the 

 inner web dusky near the shafts, white on the inner margin, 

 except towards the blackish tip, from which a dusky band runs up 

 the inner edge of the feather ; the third, fourth, and fifth quills the 

 same, except that margin runs up both edges ; remainder of the 

 quills the same colour as the mantle ; the secondaries having a 

 narrow terminal white border ; rump and tail white ; the outer 

 w r ebs of all rectrices, except the central pair, grey, being darkest 

 on the outermost pair ; chin and throat white ; breast and abdo- 

 men pale grey, with a distinct pinkish hue ; wing-lining and 

 under tail-coverts white ; bill red ; the tip of both mandibles 

 dusky ; legs red ; claws dark coloured. Wing, 11*5 ; tail, 5'8, 

 deeply forked ; the outer rectrices exceeding the central pair by 

 2'6; tarsus - 77; culmen 1*65 ; bill from front, 1-25. 



Podiceps albescens, MandelU. Sp. Nov. 



Mr. Mandelli has had, for some years in his collection, a 

 little Grebe, shot on one of the lakes in Native Sikkim. The 

 skin has hitherto been looked upon as that of an albino of 

 P. minor, but Mr. Mandelli tells me that he has for a long time 

 greatly doubted the identification; and after examining and com- 

 paring the skin, I am of opinion that it is not an albino, and I 

 am convinced that it cannot be P. minor. The plumage of the 

 body is chiefly white, but there are brown central streaks to the 

 feathers of the back and to the secondary quills, and these 

 marks are perfectly regular, not in patches ; the bill and legs are 

 as dark as in P. minor, and the feathers of the posterior abdomen, 

 although silky white at the tips, are grey at the base ; the pri- 

 maries are all greyish brown; the forehead and chiu dusky 

 black, and the throat and hind head all round ferruginous. Now, 

 all these characters taken together are decidedly adverse to the 

 idea that the skin is that of an albino; and the man who shot 

 the bird declared that there were a pair of them similarly co- 

 loured. Of course but little dependence can be placed upon 

 this, though it is favourable to the probabilities of the bird 

 being a pale coloured species. The distinction from P. minor 

 is shewn by the ferruginous coloration encircling the hinder part 

 of the head completely : in the little Grebe, in full freediug plu- 



