612 AVES. 



I shot these two specimens in the low shrubhy jungle outside the town of 

 Bham6. The male is not fully grown, and the blue feathers of the head, chin, and 

 neck are tipped with pale rufous. The blue is duller than in a full-grown example 

 of this species from Italy. In another and adult male from Cachar, with a sHghtly 

 shorter bill than the European bird, there is hardly any perceptible difference of 

 colour between them, but if anything, the blue of the Cachar bird is slightly 

 deeper than that of the European bird. In another young male from Cachar the blue 

 is decidedly duller than in the adult, and the tips of the feathers of the under-surface 

 and back are faintly banded dark-brown and pale-grey, or even white on the under tail 

 coverts ; and, in another and still younger male from the same locality, the black 

 bands on the forehead and lores are rounded spots, with rufous margins, occupying 

 the whole of the exposed portion of the feather. On drawing the feathers aside they 

 are seen to be quite as blue as in the adult male, but without the iridescence. On 

 the chin and throat the exposed portions of the feathers are finely banded pale 

 rufous, tipped with dark-brown. There is a faiat indication of a pale mesial line on 

 the chin and upper part of the throat, which is well defined in the female. The bills 

 of these two are shorter than the bill of the European bird. In a male from Nagpur, 

 Central Provinces of India, the bill is the same length as in Cachar birds, and the 

 feathers of the rmder-surface are banded dark-brown and white at their tips, and 

 faintly so on the middle of the back ; the feathers of the forehead and crown are 

 broadly tij)ped with brown. 



In an adult male from Leh, the bill is long, like the European bird, but 

 hardly perceptibly longer than that of a female from Nagpur, the bill of which 

 is longer than that of a male from the same locality. The blue of the Leh 

 bird is quite as pale as the European one. The colors of the female are as 

 variable as those of the male. All the Western Himalayan birds I have seen are 

 lighter coloured and longer billed than the eastern forms, but I have pointed out 

 the existence of long-biUed birds as far south as Nagpur. The bu'ds from Bengal 

 to the Irawady are short-billed, and, as a rule, duller than those to the west, al- 

 though I have indicated that light-coloured birds also occur in Cachar. Blyth's 

 M. longirostris, which he now regards as merely a variety of Jf, cyaneus, has a very 

 long, but not a deep, bill. It seems to me that M. manillensis is distinct from 

 M. cyaneus, although Blyth regarded them as the same. The former is paler than 

 the latter, and, in young buds, the terminal three banding of the feathers is very 

 marked both dorsally and ventrally, and the head and neck to the shoulders are so 

 broadly banded that nearly all the blue is hidden, On the breast, there are only two 

 bands, a white and a terminal brown one, the former being the most prominent. 

 There is a sHght intermixture of blue. On the abdomen, the blue is replaced by 

 rich chestnut, banded at the tip with a broad band of wliite, succeeded by a nar- 

 rower brown line, The under tail coverts are rich chestnut, tipped narrowly with 

 white, 



