170 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
Seebohm has borrowed the white-bellied specimen* you lent 
me, and he won’t be back till the end of this month from 
Russia. We will have a regular deliberation over the bird 
before I return it to you. I will also try and get your Sylvia 
altheat that he borrowed. 
I went to the British Museum last week and examined 
the types (three) of Horornis jflaviventris, Hodgson. All 
are from Nepal, and without dates. Above they are 
much about the same tone of colour as Dumeticola 
afinis; below they are much like a_ yellowish Horornis 
jortipes. There is no spotting on _ the breast, but one 
is very slightly mottled on the chin and upper throat. 
The breast is browner than the throat and abdomen. The 
tone of the bird below by no means warrants the name of 
flaviventris. One of the three has the lower tail-coverts 
tolerably perfect. These are brown, with broad, pale brownish 
white margins in the true Dumeticola, Tribura and Locustella 
fashion. The wing is also that of a Dumeticola, and sois 
the very rounded tail, with the outer feathers a good half inch 
short of central feathers. The wings of one specimen mea- 
sure 1:97; of the quills the third=7th, fourth—6th, and 
second=12th or 13th. 
This bird has the most perfect wing of the three, and may 
be relied upon. The length of tailis 1:65; tarsus, °75; bill 
at front, ‘33; from centre of nostril, *29. 
To me the species looks much like unspotted Tribura afinis 
(Dumeticola affinis, Hodgs.), and may be the young of that 
species or the bird in a yellowish plumage; but I am not sure 
about its being afinis, for the latter has, asa rule, a longer 
wing, and the third feather is proportionally longer, there being 
a greater distance or step between second and third than in 
flaviventris. 
You will see by the above formula of the wings that the 
bird is not Horornis at all. In this conclusion Blyth was 
quite right. The birds you have from Mandelli as 2. flavi- 
ventris are, I think, Horornis (Neornis) flavo-olivacea. 
I examined the types of Horornis assimilis, one presented 
by the Secretary of State for India, and the other by B. H. 
Hodgson. The colouration is precisely that of fortipes. 
No. 1.—Wing, 1°85; tail 1°80. 
No. 2.—Wing, 1:9; tail, 1:7; tarsus, 1°79. 
Both are from Nepal. You long ago suggested that this 
was the young of fortipes. Seebohm thinks them only /fortipes, 
and I think so teo. They are rather small as regards wing, 
* And of course has not returned it.—Ep., S. F. 
+ This, lef me do him the justice to say, he has returned.—Ebp., S. F. 
