STUENOPASTOE. 595 



Sturnopastor contra, Blyth & Walden, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xliv, 1875, extra No., p. 90, 

 1875; Tweedale, Ibis, 1877 (pars.), p. 319. 



a. Katha, 20tli January 1868. 



b. Bliam&, February 1868. 



This race is very prevalent in Upper Burma, but it does not extend across the 

 Kakhyen hills to the east, as far as my observations go, where it appears to be 

 replaced by Sturnopastor nigricollis. In specimens of S. contra, from Bengal, I find 

 a few white feathers over the eye in all, so that it is only the relatively greater 

 development of the white on that region, in the Burmese birds, that entitles this 

 race to the name Blyth has given it. The white on the forehead and the browner 

 back appear to be more characteristic of the race than the white supercilium. In 

 the specimens from the above localities, the black on the breast is uniformly of 

 less extent than either in ^S*. contra or in the types of the variety. 



There is a skin in the Calcutta Museum of another variety of S. contra from 

 Malacca. It is a larger bird with a longer tail than any of the other specimens of 

 this species. Another peculiarity is the greater development of the white on the 

 rump and the rather intense metallic blue lustre of the brownish-black of the back. 

 Each of the feathers on the flanks has a large deep brown spot, edged with pale 

 ashy or white. It is possible that it may turn out to be the P. jilla, Horsfield, of 

 Java, the diagnosis of which is not sufficiently detailed to enable me to determine it. 



Specimens of ^S*. contra, Linn., from Central India have the belly markedly 

 greyish ashy, and the black feathers on the upper part of the chest are narrowly 

 margined with a grey, similar to that on the belly, and the feathers on the shoulder 

 and side of neck and upper back are streaked with the same colour. In true 

 S. contra, Linn., there is, as a rule, always more or less grey streaking of the 

 feathers on the side and base of the back of the neck, the prolonging back, as it 

 were, of the superior posterior angle of the white patch on the ear-coverts, and this 

 is seen most intensified in one of Blyth's specimens of S. superciliaris, in which the 

 grey streaking has become a white coUar, the downward and backward prolongation, 

 around the neck, of the white of the ear-coverts. 



49. Sturnopastor nigricollis, Payk. 



Gracula nigricollis, Payk., Nova Acta Stockh., t. xxviii, pi. ix, 1807. 



Pastor temporalis, G. R. Gray, in Griffith, An. Kingd., vol. vi, p. 422, 1829 ; id., Gen. B., vol. ii, 



p. 334, 1847 ; Blyth, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xiii, p. 366, 1844. 

 Gracupica melanoleuca , Less., Tr. d'Orn., p. 40, 1831. 

 Pastor bicolor, J. E. Gray, Zool. Misc., p. 1, 1844. 

 Sturnopastor temporalis, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xv, p. 36, 1846; Bonap. Consp., t. i, 



p. 421, 1850. 

 Sturnopastor melanoleucus, Gray, Gen. B., vol. ii, p. 336, 1847. 



Acridotheres nigricollis. Gray, Gen. B., vol. ii, p. 335, 1847 ; id., Handl. B., vol. ii, p. 20, 1870. 

 Stwrnus temporalis, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus., As. Soc, Bengal, p. 109, 1849. 

 Gracupica nigricollis, Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. Ind. Co., p. 528, 1856; Swinhoe, 



Proc. Zool. Soc, 1871, p. 384. 



