512 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



agreed that these could not be separated. Indian specimens are 

 apparently deeper blue, but this may depend on season, this bird 

 being only a winter visitant in India ; and though, in some speci- 

 mens, the bill is shorter than in those from Europe, yet others with 

 equally long beaks are met with. 



Mv. Blyth has lately also joined both his afinis from Darjeeling 

 and Burmah, and manillensis from China and the Philippines, to the 

 European species, making the following varieties : — a. longirosiris, 

 BI., from Cashmere and Afghanistan, precisely the same as the bird 

 from Europe ; b. pandoo, Sykes, from Western and Southern India ; 

 c. afiiiisj Bl., from Sikhim, Lower Bengal, and Burmah ; d. manil- 

 lensis, Auct., from China and the Philippines. 



In deference to Mr. Blyth's matured opinion, I have put afinis 

 as a synonym of P. cyaneus', but I cannot do the same with 

 manillensis, and I am in great doubts about the identity of affinis. 

 It generally has the blue more vivid than in cyaneus ; the dusky 

 markings being less developed ; there is generally more or less 

 deep ferruginous here and there, sometimes on the rump, and 

 occasionally in the lower plumage ; and the outer tail-feathers are 

 generally shorter than the penultimate pair. The female, too, is 

 generally more tinged with blue above, and the ground-tint of the 

 lower-parts are more rufescent than in the female of cyaneus. The 

 young bird has the light markings of the nestling plumage much 

 more white above, and more rufescent beneath. Mr. Blyth him- 

 self was first led to change his previous opinion of the diversity of 

 these two races, by shooting two birds in Burmah, in succession, upon 

 the same tree, on the following days, close under a deep rock-cut- 

 ting, one of which had the outer tail-feathers shorter, the other not ; 

 and which he would have referred respectively to P. a^nis and 

 P. cyaneus, if he had received them from different localities. 



It will be observed that, of these races or varieties, each race occu- 

 pies a peculiar range of longitude; cyaneus (with pandoo) on the west 

 range, without any admixture of rufous; manillensis on the extreme 

 east, with the whole abdomen chesnut ; and afinis, between the 

 two, sometimes with, sometimes without, any rufous. When speci- 

 mens in summer plumage from various points along the North 

 of Asia have been compared, perhaps a more correct judgment 



