WILD KALEEGE HYBRIDS 91 



The first mention of this form appears in the " Calcutta Journal of Natural History " 

 in 1842, where it was described as a hybrid between J>/iasmnus/ascza^us and P. /eucome/anos. 

 Temminck, in the first edition of his Planches Coloriees, distinguished it by the name of 

 lophophortis ctivieri. Shortly after my tentative acceptance of this form as a sub-species 

 in my 191 4 review of the group, I realized that it was only another of the unusual types 

 of wild hybrids, and Baker has independently come to the same conclusion. 



Passing over the williamsi stage we come, as we go southward, to the forms of 

 which that named oatsei may be taken as an average. This hybrid may be said to show 

 25% of horsfieldi and 75% of lineatus, and centres around the southern Arakan ranges. 

 The white rump fringe is faint, but still distinct, and the dorsal vermiculations are only 

 slightly fainter than those of lineatus. The outer webs of the central rectrices have 

 got rid of much of their dark pigment, and are quite white. The female in both colour 

 and pattern is thoroughly correlated with the stage of the male. 



Ogilvie-Grant first recognized this as a sub-species in 1893, and Baker still clings 

 to it. But in one specimen of oatsei which I secured, there is the bilateral asymmetry 

 which indicates hybridism, and lineatus has been shot farther north than any oatsei thus 

 far discovered. Less than a dozen specimens have been found, and they vary enough 

 inter se to remove all doubt as to the true character of this one, among many forms. 



RIPPONI-SHARPEI-NYCTHEMERUS HYBRIDS IN THE FIELD 



My first meeting with any true silver kaleege was, as I have related, in Burma, 

 some distance from the Yunnan frontier, when from a flock of much darker birds 

 I shot one which belonged in the nycthemerus-rippoiti-ritfipes group, but which was 

 not wholly typical of any good species or named hybrid. After crossing the Yunnan 

 border, when the last outlying English fort had been left behind, I found traces of an 

 even whiter bird. These were in the form of stray feathers in the sprung dead-falls 

 of the Kachin trappers. They belonged to birds which had been caught, but discovered 

 and eaten by civet cats before the hillmen had had opportunity to go their rounds. 



Later I saw a flock of these birds and shot one, which was typical ripponi. On 

 this occasion I was part way down the slope of a wild gorge, on a late afternoon in 

 December. The mountains rose high on all sides except to the northward, where the 

 long slopes dove-tailed one another, punctuated by two majestic peaks, and ending 

 in the purple distance in the jagged ranges of the unexplored tri-corner of Tibet, 

 Yunnan, and Burma. No huts were in sight, but from a side valley came faintly the 

 weird, nameless mouthings of a tongueless Kachin cur. 



The hillside jungle showed a dozen shades of green, with here and there a blur of 

 delicate pink, marking the unseasonable blossoming of a wild cherry tree. One close 

 overhead radiated a hundred sprays of coral bloom, all ahum with insects drawn by 

 the nectar, while the branches themselves trembled with the perchings of many fly- 

 catchers, attracted in turn by the insects. 



Now a hoarse chorus came from a dense flock of parrakeets, and soon afterward 

 the tremulous wing whirr of a kaleege. This sent me down at once on my knees 

 among the scanty dwarf bamboo and everlastings, alert for another hint of the birds 

 which I was seeking. A crash of leaves and twigs drew my attention to the right along 



