X20 F. Finn — On a New species of Bhimraj. [No. 2 



The tail is unfortunately broken, so tliat its length, and tliat of 

 the whole bird, is not worth giving. The resemblance of this individual 

 in all essential structural characters to the ordinary Bhimraj is, how- 

 ever, so great, that I do not doubt that the tail will prove to have a 

 similar form with long racket-tipped outermost feathers. 



The bird was a young hand-reared one, like all Bhimrajs I have 

 seen for sale. Whether it would have lost any of the white on its first 

 moult is of course doubtful, but D.paradiseus, unlike many other Drongos, 

 is not much marked with white below in its youth, so that it is quite 

 possible that the white lower parts are permanent in this form. 



Mr. Ratledge tells me that he has had three similar specimens to 

 that described, and that they all came from Segowli in the Grorakhpur 

 district. The natives, he says, consider the form distinct, and call it 

 the " King Bhimraj." Even should it, however, prove to be only a very 

 marked aberration or sport, like the black-winged Pea-fowl {Pavo nigri- 

 pennis) or the Ringed Guillemot {Ilria ringvia), it is well worthy of 

 note and of the attention of ornithologists, to say nothing of its remark- 

 able beauty of marking, which should recommend it to fanciers, with 

 whom in India the common Bhimraj is so popular.* 



I take this opportunity of raising the question as to whether the 

 so-called family Dicruridse deserves its rank, and ought not rather to 

 be retained in the Laniidse, as Mr. Gates has very rightly, in my opinion, 

 done with the Swallow-shrikes '' Artamidae'' and Cuckoo-shrikes " Cam- 

 pephagidse:' That gentleman says, it is true, in the " Fauna of British 

 India" (Birds, Vol I., p. 308), that the Drongos "form one of the best- 

 defined families of the Passeres, their generally black plumage and 

 forked tail of ten feathers sufficing to distinguish them readily." This 



* This popularity is well deserved, for the Bhimraj is probably the most ac- 

 complished mimic known. Its powers in this respect have been alluded to by 

 Jerdon (Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 49) and I myself have heard a very fine specimen 

 once in Mr. Rutledge's possession imitate the mewing of a cat and the song of a 

 canary to perfection. Mr. R. D. Oldham, of the Geological Survey, told me 

 of one which he heard talk with a perfectly human voice ; and the bird used by 

 myself in bionomical experiments (see J. A. S. B., 1897), after a sojourn of a year 

 or two at the Zoo learnt to imitate, in addition to other sounds, the babbling of a 

 Cockatoo in which one word at least " Baba " was quite distinctly audible. When 

 I kept several together, before I began experimenting, they displayed a marked 

 partiality for the leaves of Bougainvillea, and as the identical bird alluded to above, 

 which was one of them, ate plantain readily, I am inclined to think that the 

 corvine bill of this form is connected with a corvine omnivorousness of habits. The 

 Bhimrai is also very affectionate and fond of notice, and, were if not that 

 it needs (though too generally it does not get it) a very large cage and a good 

 supply of living food, would make an ideal cage-bird. 



