¥A H. H. Godwin- Austen — List of ilie Birds collected [No. 2, 



3S5. Pyctoehis Sinensis, G-melin. 

 # 386#. Pyctoehis altieosteis, Jerdon. 



In this bird I at first considered I had got a new species, but it 

 agrees so well with Ghrysomma altirostre, Jerdon, described in the ' Ibis' 

 1862, p. 22, that I do not hesitate to identify it, although Dr. Jerdon' s 

 bird is described as from Thayet Myo on the Irrawady, Burmah, where it 

 has not again turned up, notwithstanding that this place has since been well 

 worked by Mr. Oates, Captain Fielden, and others. Although the paper 

 in which Dr. Jerdon describes G. altirostre purports to be exclusively one 

 on birds then lately obtained by him in Burmah, yet I am inclined to think 

 that he may have had before him one or two species from Assam. Twice in 

 the paper (pp. 19 and 23) he writes " Brahmaputra Biver" when he should 

 have written " Irrawady", so that there is just the possibility that P. altiros- 

 tris was from the same country where I found it so abundant, yet Dr. Jerdon 

 in 1862 had not visited Assam and did not do so until ? 1868.* What has 

 become of Dr. Jerdon' s type specimen I cannot ascertain, but the hoary 

 frontal band and peculiar short bill are conspicuous characters ; it will be 

 very interesting hereafter to compare altirostre from Burmah, should it ever 

 turn up there. As slight differences may exist, I give a description of the 

 Assam bird, which I found to be by no means uncommon in the grass of the 

 Bishnath plain. I first shot it from off an elephant near the embotichement 

 of the Burroi Biver, and altogether secured four specimens, one of which, 

 with many others in this list, I have sent to the Indian Museum, Calcutta. 

 It is in every respect a true Pyctorhis. Jerdon says very rightly, it may 

 be on only a cursory glance mistaken for Pyc. Sinensis, but on a more 

 attentive examination, or on comparison with the latter, its distinctness is 

 at once apparent. f It is a difficult bird to shoot, its habits being so very 

 skulking, and when once frightened it will not rise again. It is also a much 

 more solitary bird than P. sinensis, which associates in considerable flocks 3 

 and I never found more than two or three together. 



Desc. — Above dark ruddy brown, brightest on the head, primaries, and 

 outer edging of the tail-feathers ; frontal band, over the eye, and ear-coverts 

 hoary ; in some specimens less white is mixed with the dark grey than in 

 others. Chin pale grey, merging gradually on the breast into pale rusty 

 ochre and on the flanks, belly, and under tail-coverts into ferruginous. 

 Irides (very narrow) pale sienna ; orbits yellow ; bill ruddy brown, pale 

 ruddy below. 



L. 6-25, W. 2-45, T. 3-8, t. 1-08, Bf. 642 inches. 



* Since -writing this Mr. "W. T. Blanford says fin epist.J, " I remember seeing 

 the specimen at Thayet Myo. I was there with Jerdon, you know." 



f Mr. Hume (in 'Stray Feathers', Vol. Ill, p. 115) refers to altirostre, hut the 

 birds he had under review were evidently, as he says, nothing but P. Sinensis. 



