FROM SIKKIM, BHUTAN, TIBET. 487 



mage, the nape appears always to be dusky, and the ferruginous 

 colouration not to extend across behind the head ; the dimensions 

 of P. albescens and P. minor appear identical. The following is 

 an account of the supposed new species : — ■ 



Description. — Forehead, sides of the head as far back as the 

 hinder part of eyes and chin blackish brown ; lores and base of 

 the lower mandible beueath the lores naked, and doubtless 

 brightly coloured in the living bird ; the whole hinder head, 

 nape and throat, forming a complete ring, rich chestnut, a little 

 paler below ; hinder part of neck pale brown ; the feathers tipped 

 white ; sides of neck white ; back white ; the feathers with 

 narrow central earthy brown stripes, extending throughout the 

 feather ; these stripes disappear on the rump, but are well mark- 

 ed on the scapulars, a few of the latter being almost entirely 

 earthy brown except at the tip ; primary quills earthy brown 

 with naiTow white tips ; secondaries white, with dark central 

 stripes ; wing-coverts white, some of the larger with faint me- 

 sial stripes ; whole under-partsfrom the throat pure silky white ; 

 bill in dried skin blackish ; tips of both mandibles whitish ; legs 

 brown (probably olive when fresh). Wing, 3'75 ; tarsus, 1*3 ; 

 mid toe, 1*8 culmen, 096 ; bill from front, 84. 



fU&eUics? 



Arachnothera simillima, Sp. Nov. 



"Extremely like A flavigaster, ~Eyton, but smaller, somewliat yellower 

 above and below, with a much smaller bill and distinguished at once 

 by the rami of the loioer mandible not meeting to form the angle of 

 the gonys till within 0*6 of the point. 



Having only a single native skin of this species I should have 

 hesitated to describe it were it not for the marked structural 

 difference alluded to at the close of the diagnosis. 



In flavigaster and most of the Arachnotheras (including with 

 these Arachnor aphis) with which I am acquainted, the chin 

 terminates at the junction of the rami of the lower mandible 

 in an obtuse rather rounded curve. 



This curve is distant in flavigaster, the species which our 

 present species most closely resembles, from 1 to l'SJ inches, 

 according to sex, from the tip of the lower mandible. We have 

 a very laro-e series of our own collecting of both sexes, and there 

 is no doubt on this point. In clinjsogenys, of which we have 

 an equally large series, it is about TO inch ; in ro b usta about 

 17 inch ; in what I call crassirostris, but which Captain Shelley 



