BLACK-BACKED KALEEGE 39 



terminal margins, these becoming wide white bands on the wing-coverts, forming 

 very conspicuous bars. In browner individuals the dorsal plumage is indistinctly 

 mottled with dark reddish-brown and black, the warmer tone becoming strongest on 

 the rump. Here too the terminal band loses its pure grey character and becomes 

 increasingly buffy posteriorly. 



In the vermiculation of the middle tail-feathers melanonotus has the red darker, 

 more rufous and less buffy than in leitcomelanus, and, in the great majority of 

 individuals, with a decided preponderance of greenish glossed black on the outer 

 webs, in some specimens the rufous markings being almost obliterated. Then again 

 in melanonotus the lateral tail-feathers are almost wholly unmarked greenish, lacking 

 the paler vermiculation which in leucomelanus often extends over the margins of 

 several pairs. 



The lower plumage of a typical fresh melanonotus female shows a strongly 

 contrasted black and white coloration, the latter colour forming a very wide 

 terminal band and grading into the black through a narrow buffy zone. In very 

 brown individuals this buffy zone gives place to a more or less extensive area 

 of rich dark rufous, merging abruptly into the black of the remainder of the 

 feather. 



The facial skin is dark red, dotted with numerous featherlets, and the eye is dark 

 hazel. The general degree of melanism is reflected very exactly in the pigmentation 

 of the mandibles. In the lightest, reddest individuals the basal black covers only 

 about half of the upper mandible, and is broken by two large lateral patches on the 

 culmen, where the greenish horn predominates. In the dark birds, on the other 

 hand, the upper mandible is almost or quite black, only the extreme tip showing the 

 paler hue. The legs and feet are darker than in leucomelanus. Weight, i lb. 14 ozs. 

 to 2 lbs. 4 ozs. Length, 450 to 530 ; expanse, 630 to 680 ; wing, 220 ; tail, 200 ; 

 tarsus, 70; middle toe and claw, 57 mm. 



Variation. — I wish here to speak of a most interesting and unexpected change 

 in colour which I have observed in museum skins of female kaleege, an alteration 

 which is especially noticeable in this very dark-plumaged bird. The extreme is to be 

 observed in Blyth's type which is in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. In the catalogue 

 of the birds of the Asiatic Society this specimen is annotated, *' Mr. Webb, 1845," 

 so that we may assume that it is about seventy-five years of age. The difference 

 between this and the very brownest bird which I could secure in Sikhim is startling. 

 Although, as far as I could learn, it has never been exposed to the light, yet it is 

 paler than the palest of any fresh kaleege of any species, while when compared with 

 a typical black melanojtotus female, the two would never be suspected of close 

 relationship. This is an extreme case, but I have carefully compared my fresh skins 

 of the three Himalayan kaleege females with those in the museums of London, 

 Berlin, Paris and elsewhere, and invariably I have found a greater or lesser degree 

 of paling — an apparent breaking down of the black pigment into a more primitive 

 reddish brown. Even when this is slight it is sufficient to obscure the distinctness 

 of the various species, which in comparatively fresh wild birds is quite obvious. 



The same is true in a lesser degree of the males, and I have a number of 



