ALSEONAX LATIKOSTKIS. 



(THE BROWN FLYCATCHER.) 



Muscicapa latirostris, Raffl. Tr. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 312 (1821). 



Muscicapa grisola, var. dauurica, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 461 (1831). 



Hemichelidon latirostris, Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 262 (1845) ; Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 175 



(1849) ; Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. i. p. 137 (1856). 

 Butalis latirostris, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1847, xvi. p. 121 ; Layarcl, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 



1854, xiii. p. 127; Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 123 (1852). 

 Alseonax latirostris, Cab. Mus. Hein. i. p. 53 (1850) ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 459 ; Holdsw. 



P. Z. S. 1872, p. 441 ; Hume & Henderson, Lahore to Yark. p. 185, pi. v. ; Walden, 



Ibis, 1873, p. 308; Hume, Str. Feath. 1874, p. 219; Bourdillon, ibid. 1876, p. 396; 



Hume (B. of Tenass.), Str. Feath. 1878, p. 227 ; Sharpe, Cat. B. iv. p. 127 (1879). 

 Alseonax terricolor, Brooks, Str. Feath. 1877, p. 470. 

 ZiikM, Hind. (Jerdon); Shima-modzu, Japan (Blakiston). 



Adult male and female. Length 5-1 to 5-3 inches ; wing 2-7 to 2-95 ; tail 2-2 ; tarsus 0-55 ; mid toe and claw 0-6 ; 



bill to gape - 6. 

 Iris brown ; bill, upper mandible blackish, lower fleshy with dark tip ; legs and feet dark grey or wood-brown. 

 Lores mingled grey and white ; an orbital fringe of fulvous ; head and upper surface light cinereous brown, slightly 



darker on the head ; wings and tail hair-brown ; wing-coverts pale-margined, inner secondaries and tertials with 



broad fulvous-grey edgings ; tail tipped pale ; chin albescent, darkening on the fore neck and chest into cinereous 



grey; breast and lower parts white; flanks cinereous grey. 

 The amount of pale edging on the wing-coverts and secondaries varies considerably. Mr. Hume, too, notices this 



character in ' Stray Feathers.' 



Young (nestling : Nepal). Above brown, slightly tinged with rusty on the upper tail-coverts, and each feather of the 

 upper surface with an elongated central spot of greyish near the tip, which becomes fulvous on the rump and 

 upper tail-coverts ; wing-coverts with deep terminal edgings of fulvous ; inner secondaries the same ; quills 

 margined internally with rufescent; ear-coverts tipped with dark brown ; under surface whitish, the fore-neck 

 feathers tipped with dusky ; flanks dusky. 



Obs. I have examined a large series of this Flycatcher from Japan, China, Lidia, the Andamans, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, 

 and Saigon, and am of opinion that there is but the one species, with perhaps a local race, which is rusty- 

 coloured on the upper surface, but similar beneath to our bird, in Cochin China and Borneo. Examples from 

 Japan, nine of which I have examined, are identical to all intents with those which visit Ceylon ; they are perhaps 

 greyer on the back and not quite so brown on the chest and flanks ; they vary in the wing from 2-6 to 

 2*85 inches, and in the bill are the same as ours. A Tenasserim example (w. 2-6) is slightly more " earthy" than 

 Ceylonese examples on the rump, and one from N.W. Himalayas still more so ; two from Port Blair are positively 

 identical with specimens killed in Ceylon. A Javan bird is very rusty-coloured on the nape and edges of the wing- 

 coverts, therein approaching a Sarawak bird, which measures in the wing 2'55 inches only, and which is very 

 " rusty " on the upper surface, the ferruginous tint increasing towards the riunp ; the wing-coverts are margined 

 and tipped with ferruginous ; and, in fact, were it not for the under surface, which is almost exactly the same as 

 specimens from India and elsewhere, the bird would have the appearance of Hemichelidon ferrugineus. An 

 example from Saigon is much the same as the last. These birds might well form a subspecies, I think ; but I see 

 that Mr. Sharpe, in the 4th vol. of his great ' Catalogue of Birds,' unites the races from all parts in one and the 

 same species. Mr. Hodgson's specimens of A. terricolor in the British Museum are in bad order ; but they are 

 clearly nothing but the present species. 



Distribution, — This modest little bird is a cold-weather visitant to Ceylon, coming to us from South 



