Genus ACEIDOTHEEES. 



Bill stout, rather straight, the tip notched and the gape strongly angulated ; nostrils placed 

 in a depression, the frontal feathers concealing them. Wings long and pointed ; the 1st quill 

 less than the primary-coverts, the 3rd the longest, and the 2nd longer than the 5th. Legs and 

 feet very strong. The tarsus longer than the middle toe and its claw, covered in front with four 

 stout scales ; toes strongly scaled, the outer syndactyle and longer than the inner, and both 

 considerably shorter than the middle ; hind toe and claw very large. 



Orbital region nude ; head crested, the feathers narrow and much attenuated. 



ACEIDOTHEEES MELANOSTEEN US. 



(THE CEYLONESE MYNA.) 

 (Peculiar to Ceylon.) 



Acridotheres tristis, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 108, spec. E, F, ex Ceylon (184D) ; 



Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 125 (1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiii. 



p. 218; Ilorsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. ii. p. 532 (1856) (in part); Jerdon, 



B. of Ind. ii. p. 325 (1863) (in part); Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 462; Hume, Str. 



Feath. 1873, p. 440; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 23. 

 Acridotheres melanosternus, Legge, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1879, iii. p. 168. 

 The Paradise Gnu lie (Kelaart) ; Martintro, Portuguese in Ceylon ; Meld-Myna of 



Europeans. Na-canam patchy, Tamils, cqnid Layard. 

 Gon kawada, Gon Jcowdichya, Sinhalese. 



Ad. similia -1. Insti. sed ubique saturatior, ct gutturis nigredine magis extensfi et per pectus medium deducts. 



! \ult male and female. Length 9-2 to 10-75 inches : wing 5--1 to 5-8 ; tail 3-2 to 3-4 ; tarsus 1-5 to 17 : middle tee 

 and claw 1-45 ; bill to gape 1-3 to 1-38. 



[ris variable, pink-brown and pinkish grey in some, in others whitish mottled with fine specks of dark colour ; bill 

 yellow, blackish at the sides mar base of lower mandible; legs and feet sickly yellow ; orbital skin yellow, this 

 extends round the eye, but, being very narrow above, is hidden by the superciliary feathers. 



Head, nape, upper part of hind neck, chin, and throat black, the feathers of the head and nape long, narrow, and 

 lanceolate, forming a crest ; hind neck, back, scapulars, tertials, wing-coverts, sides of the chest, and the flanks 

 buff-brown, with the black of the chest descending in a stripe down the centre of the breast, blending into the 

 adjacent colour and passing round above the abdomen, which, with the vent and under tail-coverts, are white: 

 quills, the primary-coverts partially, and the tail brown-black ; the bases of the primaries, the outer webs of some 

 of the primary-coverts and the inner webs of others, the edge of the wing, and the under wing-coverts white, as 

 are also the tips of all but the centre tail-feathers, decreasing towards the centre ; thigh-coverts blackish brown. 



1'he tail in this species becomes remarkably abraded, the white tips sometimes entirely disappearing. 



) ovmg. Eufous above, deepening into blackish brown on the occiput and head, with which the face, chin, and throat 

 are concolorous ; feathers of the head not elongated; wings and tail paler browu than in the adult; sides of the 

 chest and breast light russet-brown ; down the centre of the breast the feathers are blackish slate (that is, not so 

 dark as in the adult), and the white of the abdomen advances further up and is not bordered with blackish ; the 

 leathers of the neck and back have faint tippings of rufous-grey, more pronounced in some than iu others. 



