208 Mr. J. H. Gurney’s Notes on 
ever, writes thus in his‘ Rough Draft of Nests and Eggs of 
Indian Birds,’ p. 55 :—“ It is not improbable that the Bengal 
race may have to be separated from the Upper and Southern 
Indian one: in the former the crest would appear to be always 
well developed, and, according to Blyth, the iris red ; whereas, 
while in the latter the crest is at best rudimentary, the iris 
is bright yellow. This refers to adults; in the young the iris 
is brownish red in the former, brownish yellow in the latter.” 
I have not myself observed any marked difference as to the 
length of the crest in specimens from different parts of India. 
The longest I have seen is that of the Punjaub adult female 
in the Norwich Museum, which measures 1:9 inch; I have 
seen a nearly adult male and female from Secunderabad with 
crests respectively 1:5 and 1:6 in length; and the adult bird 
in the Norwich Museum from near Calicut has a crest mea- 
suring 1:3. 
Other Indian examples that I have examined from various 
localities have yielded the following results: viz. one from Ma- 
dras, one from the Deccan, four from Nepal, one from the 
Himalayas, and one from “ Northern India” have been de- 
stitute of any crest; I have found crests of less than an inch 
in length in one bird from Madras, in one from near Calicut, 
one from the Deccan, one from Darjeeling, one from Agra, 
and one from “Northern India,’ crests measuring 1°] in 
one specimen from Kamptee and in one from Bengal, crests 
of 1-2 in length in two others from Kamptee, and a crest 
measuring 1°5 in a specimen from “ Southern India.” 
With regard to the variation in the colour of the iris in 
P. ptilorhynchus, I may mention a dark-coloured short-crested 
specimen which was living some years since in the gardens 
of the Zoological Society of London*, and which was recorded. 
as from India, but without any more definite locality. This 
bird, when first received at the gardens, had reddish-brown 
irides, which, as it grew older, became cherry-red, and the late 
Mr. Blyth, whose attention I called to the circumstance, assured 
me that such was always the case in Bengal specimens. 
* This specimen was referred to by the late Mr. Blyth in ‘ The Ibis’ 
for 1870, p. 160. 
