llluslralions of Indian Ornithology. 



Description. Top of head, back of neck, body above, and wings .bright glossy green 

 black ; beneath dull sooty black, some of the centre feathers of the abdomen partially tinged 

 with buff; a stripe of golden yellow rnns from the lower mandible to the back of the neck 

 about the lower third, where it is gradually lost ; chin, throat, and neck beneath, wliite, vari- 

 gated with deep chesnut and black, the feathers short at first but gradually lengthening and 

 becoming lanceolate ; each feather has the outer barb and tip black, edged with creamy white, 

 and the inner barb chesnut ; the chin and throat want the black, and the white is of a purer 

 tinge. A narrow stripe of close set feathers run from the base of the lower mandible to the 

 ear-covcrts, black and chesnut coloured, the bases of the feathers being white ; the long fea- 

 thers of the breast are black, edged with white on both sides. 



Length 24— 25 inches Wing 8| Tail 2|, Tarsus 2| Middle toe 2|, Bill (at front) 

 3,^, at gape nearly 4. Bill appears to have been of a dusky reddish brown — Legs dark green. 



The plumage of the young bird is described as being of a saturate blue, and in a 

 further stage, I presume, it gets the purplish brown tinge described by Latham. The smo- 

 ky tinge described by Horsfield, with the tail deep blue, must be a bird in transition plumage. 



