SIPHIA TICKELLIJl 



(THE BLUE REDBREAST.) 



Muscicapa hyacintha, Tickell, J. A. S. B. 1833, ii. p. 574. 



Cyornis banyumas (nee Horsf.), Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 941 ; id. Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. 



p. 173 (1849); Jerdon, B. of Lid. i. p. 446 (1862). 

 Cyornis tickellhe, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 941 ; Jerdon, B. of Lid. i. p. 467 ; Hayes 



Lloyd, Ibis, 1872, p. 197; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 436 ; Ball, ibid. 1874, p. 405 ; 



Butler & Hume, ibid. 1875, p. 468. 

 Cyornis jerdoni, Gray, Hand-1. B. i. p. 325 (1869); Jerdon, Ibis, 1872, p. 125; Holdsw. 



P.Z.S. 1872, p. 442; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 18. 

 Siphia tickellice, Sharpe, Cat. B. iv. p. 447 (1879). 

 Marawa, Sinhalese. 



Adult male and female. Length 5-6 to 5-9 inches ; wing 2-7 to 2-95 ; tail 2-3 to 2-6 ; tarsus 0-65 to 0-7 ; mid toe and 

 claw 0-65 ; bill to gape 0-7 to 0-77. 



Male. Iris brown ; bill blackish ; legs and feet bluish brown, dusky bluish, or bluish grey. 



Head and entire upper surface (including the sides of the neck), wings, and tail dull blue, brightening at the forehead, 

 above the eye, and on the point of wing into shining cserulean blue ; inner webs of the rectrices and quills and the 

 outer primaries wholly blackish brown ; lores, face, and along the base of the under mandible to the chin bluish 

 black ; throat (commencing at a point between the dark blue sides), neck, and chest fine fulvous rufescent, paling 

 off on the sides of the breast and flanks to light fulvous, and leaving the centre of breast and abdomen with the 

 under tail-coverts white. 



Obs. In the damp southern forests are to be found dark rufous-chested examples of this species with a broad max- 

 illary stripe exceeding that of specimens from other parts of the island by 0-1 inch, and with the abdomen and 

 under tail-coverts very faintly washed with rufous, forming, in fact, a link between the present species and the 

 Javan bird (C. banyumas). I possess such a specimen from the timber-jungles of Opate. 



Female. Bill less black ; legs and feet bluish, paler than in the male. 



Above a lighter or faded blue, with a less brilliant frontal stripe and shoulder-patch ; lores fulvous grey ; cheeks bluish, 



without the chin-stripe ; chin whitish, deepening to light rufescent fulvous on the chest, and paling on the flanks 



as in the male. 



Young male. Legs and feet light bluish. Head and hind neck brown, with fulvous-yellow mesial lines ; back brown, 

 suffused with fulvescent, and each feather with a terminal spot of the same ; wing-coverts with deep tips of a 

 brighter hue than the markings of the back ; quills and tail as in the adult ; beneath, the throat and chest 

 fulvescent, with a faint indication of a stripe along the edge of the lower mandible, and the feathers of the chest 

 edged dusky. The clothing-feathers are doffed at a very early age, and the blue of the back, together with the 

 rufous hues of the underparts, soon assumed. 



Young female. Legs and feet fleshy ; upper parts duller brown than the male, with central stripes and terminal 

 spots of fulvous ; chest pale buff-white, darkly edged. 



Obs. This is the species styled by Jerdon in his ' Birds of India ' Cyornis banyumas, and afterwards named C. jerdoni 

 by Gray in his ' Hand- list.' Blyth, however, had {loc. cit.) previously named a pale-chested Blue Redbreast C. tiekellioz ; 

 and this was afterwards found by Major Hayes Lloyd to be nothing but the female of Jerdon's bird. In ' The Ibis ' 

 for 1872, p. 197, he gives the history of this discovery in an interesting letter dated from Kattiawar ; and subse- 

 quently, as Blyth's name had priority over Gray's, the species has been, as a matter of course, styled C. ticJcellio?. 

 Ceylon specimens do not differ from examples from various parts of India, although some individuals 1 have 



