792 GALLICEEX CIXEREA. 



cross marks of dark slaty, and on the throat and fore neck some of the blackish nuptial feathers remain; the 

 hind neck, back, and scapulars are chocolate-brown, passing with a fulvous hue into the buff of the margins of 



the feathers. 

 Blvth states that the hue of the breeding-season is assumed by a change of colouring in the non-breeding feathers, the 

 caruncle or horn rising at the same time from the pointed frontal shield, into which it shrinks after breeding 

 is over. 



Femal (Ceylon). Length 13-3 to 14-2 inches : wing 7 - to 7*4 ; tail 2-8 to 3-1: tarsus 2-5 to 2-8 ; middle toe and 

 claw 2-S5 to 3-15 ; bill to gape 1-3 to 1-4. ' 



Iris pale brown or yellow-brown ; bill, upper mandible dark olive, the base near the forehead yellow or sometimes 

 reddish, the lower mandible yellowish fleshy, with the gonys red in some ; legs and feet greyish olive-green, the 

 joints greenish yellow. 



Top of the head, down the centre of hind neck, upper surface, inner wing-coverts, and tail sepia-brown, palest on the 

 hind neck, and changing gradually on the outer wing-coverts to bluish slaty ; the head almost uniform brown ; the 

 remaining portions deeply margined, except on the lower back, with tawny fulvous; margins of the greater coverts 

 mottled with the ground-colour of the feathers ; quills cinereous brown, slaty beneath the 1st primary, and along 

 the front of the wing white ; chin, throat, and abdomen whitish, blending into the brownish fulvous or tawny 

 of the face, supercilium, fore neck, and underparts ; neck, breast, flanks, and under tail-coverts crossed with 

 wavy bars of cinereous brown, indistinct on the body, and darker and well-defined on the under tail-coverts : 

 posterior portion of thighs brownish ; under wing-coverts slaty, tipped with white. Some examples have the 

 abdomen almost concolorous with the breast, and lightly barred. 



Young. I have not succeeded in examining any young examples, and never procured any in Ceylon. The plumage 

 in the immature stage has not, to my knowledge, been described, but it probably differs little from that of the 

 female. 



Oh*. A comparison of Ceylonese female specimens of this bird with a series from India, Malaya, and China shows 

 that it varies scarcely at all throughout its wide range, either in plumage or in size. The wings of those I have 

 measured from Malaya and India vary from 7'2 to To inches. 



Distribution. — The Watercock is a moderately common bird in Ceylon, but it is so skulking in its 

 habits that it is not observed as often as it otherwise would be. Layard speaks of it as being "common in 

 the south about Matara, frequenting the sedges " there ; and I therefore conclude that he only noticed it in 

 this district. In the neighbourhood of Colombo it came under Mr. Holdswortb/s observation, for he remarks 

 that it is common there ; and, as a matter of fact, it is perhaps more plentiful round Colombo than in any other 

 part of the Western Province, except perhaps in the extensive paddy-lands near the Bolgodde lake. I have 

 seen it at Marandahn, Borclla, and near Grand Pass, all within a radius of three miles of the town; and at 

 Kaduvvella and Kotte it is just as often met with. It has mostly come under my notice in these parts during 

 the north-east monsoon (at Gallc I never saw it between April and October) ; and there may be an internal 

 migration towards the coast from the tank districts in the North-west Province, where it is abundant in certain 

 places. Mr. Parker informs me that he has counted about seventy in sight at the same time round a tank 

 not far from Wariyapola, in the Kurunegala district. It inhabits, as a rule, all the tanks in the northern 

 part of the island ; and I have procured it in a swamp close to the shore near Trincomalie, where it is by no 

 means uncommon. It is found in the Jaffna peninsula, where Mr. F. Gordon, of the Oriental Bank, has 

 procured it. It inhabits the tank districts in the Eastern Province; and I have seen it in suitable localities 

 in the country to the north of Hambantota and also towards Yala. I never obtained a male bird, but 

 procured plenty of females, and saw them in other collections while in the island, none of which contained, 

 however, any examples of the other sex : this is noteworthy. As to its distribution in the mainland, it may 

 be said to be local, and, further, that it does not extend into the drier portions of the north-west of the 

 empire. Mr. Hume says of it : — " The Watercock, so far as our Indian empire is concerned, is, I think, 

 restricted to tracts where the rainfall is not less than 40 inches, and where night frosts are unknown, 



" It is common on the western coast of the peninsula, in the eastern portions of the Central Provinces, and 

 in the neighbourhood of the Mahanuddy, throughout Lower Bengal . . . but it is almost unknown in the 



