TUEDUS KINNISI. 



(THE CEYLONESE BLACKBIRD.) 



Merula Mnnisi (Kelaart), Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1851, xx. p. 177 ; Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. 

 p. 122 (1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 270 ; Blyth, Ibis, 1867, 

 p. 304 ; Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 446 ; Hume, Str. Feath. 1878, p. 35, 



The Nuwara-Elliya Blackbird, Residents in Ceylon. 



Adult male and female. Length 9-0 to 9-7 inches ; wing 4-3 to 4-6 ; tail 3-5 to 3-8 ; tarsus 1-25 to 1-3 ; middle toe 

 and claw 1-2 to 1-25 ; bill to gape 1-17 to 1-25. Females average smaller than males. 



05s. In this species the wing is slightly rounder, and the 1st primary is often more lengthened than in typical 

 Turdus. I say " often," for it is a singular fact that this feather varies in length in this bird. In some examples, 

 especially young ones, it considerably exceeds the primary-coverts, although it generally equals them only, and 

 in several specimens that I have examined it is longer in one wing than in the other of the same bird ! In view 

 of the irregularity in the length of this feather I have not removed it from the genus Turdus. 



Male. Iris pale brown ; eyelid and bill orange-yellow ; legs and feet paler yellow than the bill ; claws yellowish horny. 



Above slaty bluish black, darkest on the face and head, the feathers of the upper surface having bluish-grey margins 

 everywhere but on those parts ; quills and wing-coverts broadly margined with dark bluish slaty : tail black, 

 more indistinctly edged with the same j beneath dingy black, the feathers edged paler than those of the back, 

 and with a greyish hue slightly pervading the abdomen. 



Female. Bill yellowish orange ; eyelid yellow ; legs and feet pale yellow. Above dark bluish slate, pervaded with 

 brownish on the head, the margins of all the feathers black ; outer webs of primaries and secondaries washed 

 with brownish slaty ; tail blackish brown, beneath slaty washed with earthy brown ; the feathers of the abdomen 

 sometimes with light shaft-streaks ; under wing-coverts edged with earthy brown. 



Young. In the nestling the iris is brown ; bill black, tinged near the gape and at the base of the lower mandible with 

 yellow, which colour gradually spreads with age ; legs and feet brownish yellow. A young bird in Mr. Holdsworth 's 

 collection has the head and neck brownish, the ear-coverts and lores darker ; the back has a more bluish tinge 

 than in the adult ; the wings and tail blackish brown, with dull slaty edgings ; throat and chest fulvous, the 

 feathers with dark tips, the breast slightly paler, without the dark tippings. 



An immature female in the plumage of the latter end of the first year, which I shot in January 1877 on the Horton 

 Plains, has the throat, fore neck, and breast, together with the sides of the neck, as also the forehead and a space 

 above the eye, earthy brown ; but the lores and face are coal-black ; on the head and hind neck there is a 

 fulvescent tinge, and the wing-coverts and flanks have the feathers tipped with a still more ochraceous hue. This 

 plumage is mingled on the back and wings with the nigrescent feathers of the adult stage. The last remnant of 

 the immature attire is usually found in the pale tippings of the wing-coverts. 



Obs. This Blackbird, which is a representative of the Nilghiri species Turdus simillima, has, until quite recentlv, 

 been considered to be peculiar to Ceylon. Mr. Hume, however, has received specimens from Mr. Bourdillon, 

 shot in Travancore, which he (' Stray Feathers,' 1878, p. 35) unites with the Ceylonese form, owing to the fact 

 of their being as dark as Nuwara-Elliya examples. He remarks, notwithstanding, that they are slightly larger, 

 measuring 4-7 inches in the wing, whereas our birds never exceed 4-6. As the distinctive character in plumage 

 of the Nilghiri bird is its paler colour, and as it is considerably larger than T. hinnisi, measuring 5 - inches in 

 the wing, it seems not unreasonable to unite the Travancore species with the latter ; and I must therefore, 

 though somewhat reluctantly, consent to our fine Blackbird being disrated from its rank as a peculiar island 

 species ! I wish, however, that more had been said about the coloration of these newly discovered Travancore 

 birds, namely as to whether they exhibited the peculiar slaty edgings to the upper-surface feathers which are 

 characteristic of T. Mnnisi from Ceylon. 



Blyth in describing the species, loc. cit., incorrectly called the male " jet-black," and laid stress on the pronortion of 

 the primary feathers ; but these vary with age. 



