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PKINIA HODGSON! 



(THE MALABAR WREN-WARBLER.) 



Prinia gracilis (Franklin), Jerdon, Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Joum. 1840, xi. p. 3. 



Prima hodgsoni, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1844, xiii. p. 376 ; id. Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. x. p. 143 

 (1849) ; Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. i. p. 322 (1854) ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. ii. 

 p. 173 (1863); Hume, Nest and Eggs, ii. p. 342 (1874) ; Legge, Mem. B. Hambantota, 

 Ceylon Blue-book, 1874, p. 9 (first record from Ceylon); id. Str. Featb. 1875, p. 203; 

 id. Ibis, 1875, p. 397 ; Oates, Str. Feath. 1875, p. 136 ; Butler & Hume, t. c. p. 480 ; 

 Bourdillon, ibid. 1876, p. 401. 



Prinia albogularis, Walden, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1870, v. p. 219. 



Prinia pectoralis, Legge, Mem. B. Hambantota, ut supra, note. 



The Small Wren-Warbler, Jerdon; The Slaty-breasted Wren-Warbler, Hodgson s Wren- 

 Warbler. Phutki, Hind. 



Adult male and female. Length from 4-3 to 4-6 inches ; wing 1-65 to L85 ; tail 1*85 to 2-0 ; tarsus 07 to 075 ; mid 

 toe and claw 0-52 to - 57 ; bill at front 0-55 to 0-58. Females are, on the average, the smaller of the sexes. 



Note. This species*, together with P. gracilis and P. cinereocapilla, has 12 tail-feathers. 



Male. Iris reddish yellow ; eyelid brownish yellow; bill black: legs and feet fleshy yellow, in some a faint tinge of 

 brown on the tarsus ; claws brown. 



Head, hind neck, back, and wing-coverts dusky cinereous ashy, with a slight olivaceous tinge on the back, and the rump 

 somewhat pale ; wings and tail hair-brown, the latter tipped whitish, with an adjacent blackish bar, showing 

 darkest beneath and almost obsolete on the centre feathers ; edges of the quills lighter than the rest of the 

 feather ; beneath white, with a broad cinereous ashy pectoral band, above which the throat is tinged with buff ; 

 flanks concolorous with the chest ; thighs fulvous-brown. 



Female. Iris as in the male ; tarsus not so clear in colour. Less cinereous above, wings paler brown ; a light streak 

 above the lores ; the pectoral band about the same width, but much paler ; flanks the same. 



Young. In the nestling just fledged the iris is olive ; bill dark brown, yellow beneath at base ; legs and feet brownish 



yellow, claws light yellowish. 

 Above brownish olivaceous, inclining to rusty on the rump; wings brown, edged with light ferruginous; beneath 



white, a faint dark band across the chest, and a slight tinge of buff over the whole ; edge of wing white. 

 For some little time the upper parts remain the same, but the pectoral band darkens, the tips of the rectrkes 



are whiter than in the adult, and the soft parts undergo a gradual change ; the iris becomes yellow, the bill 



blackish, with a.pale base below, and the legs less brownish. At the end of the first year the head is cinereous as 



in the adult, but the back is more olivaceous, the wing-coverts and quills still edged rusty, and the pectoral band 



of not quite the normal depth, with the lower parts tinged still with buff. 

 During nonage females are distinguishable at all stages by the pectoral band being lighter than in the male, and slightly 



incomplete in the centre. 



06s. Examples of this species procured by me in Ceylon iu 1873 were identified by Mr. Blanford as identical with 

 his Nellore specimens, which he had compared with the types of Lord Walden's P. alborjularis from Coorg and 

 which corresponded with them. Misled by the omission of all mention of the pectoral band in Jerdon's description, 

 and not possessing Indian specimens for comparison, I had, on first discovering the species in Ceylon, come to the 

 conclusion that it was new, and had named it, in my manuscript for a paper I was writing at the time, P. pectoralis. 

 I have been unable to compare South- Indian specimens with mine, as the series of iVinia-skins in the British 

 Museum is scanty ; but, in addition to the above evidence, Mr. Fairbank writes me that a specimen he got at the 

 base of the Mahabaleshwar hills had a broad dark slaty band across the chest. Captain Butler and Mr. Oates both 

 refer to the dark band across the chest in this species ; and therefore I conclude that Ceylon specimens will 



* It has been stated that Jerdon erroneously described this species as having 12 tail-feathers. It, however 



certainly has 12. 



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