SOME RECENTLY DESCRIBED SIAMESE BIRDS. 53 



flavinucha lylei, also, cannot be accepted as a subspecies : — because 

 some woodpeckers sent by Mr. E. G. Herbert from Siam do not 

 differ from examples of G. f. pierrei, therefore lylei, also from 

 " Siam, must be the same as the others and also be pierrei. But Mr- 

 Herbert's birds which came from Eastern Siam and mine from 

 South-western Siam are not alike (I have examined Herbert's 

 specimens) ; the former are indeed pierrei — absolutely : but the other 

 is not. 



Baker further suggests that birds obtained and recorded from 

 North Siam by Gyldenstolpe as C. flavinucha are probably also 

 pierrei ; but he is probably mistaken. One of the characters dis- 

 tinguishing pierrei is its dark bill whereas North Siamese birds have, 

 according to Gyldenstolpe ( Kungl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl., 56, No. 2, 

 p. 92 ), bills " bluish grey to white " — as has lylei ! 



Mr. Williamson has also sent for inspection a considerable 

 series of black and grey Drongos from Siam. 



During my visit there at the end of 1916 I obtained black 

 birds of two forms and determined one, by comparison with Javanese 

 t material, as Buchanga atra longus: then, not realising that one or 

 both might be merely visitors and being unwilling to recognise two 

 resident races of the same species occurring , together, 1 forced the 

 second into Dicrurus annectens and described it with the name of 

 siamensis. I have since realised that it is Buchanga atra cathoeca 

 ( previously recorded by Gyldenstolpe from Kuh Lak, in Kungl. Sv. 

 Vet. Akad. Handl., 56, No. 2, p. 20); but the original description of 

 the race by Swinhoe is misleading as the bronze colour it was said 

 to possess is merely caused by wear. 



Since it was impossible to discover any difference between 

 the small series of longus from Siam and Java (vide Ibis, 1918, p. 

 227 ), it might be thought that there is migration between the 

 two places : but it is an argument against such a practice that the 

 climates of both are very similar and there is in neither any consi- 

 derable annual variation. Further, though nearly all the examples 

 known to me from Southern Indo-China (North Malajr Peninsula, 

 Siam and S. Annam) were taken between October and May, yet Mr. 



VOL. IV, NO. 2, 1920. 



