INDICATOR XANTHONOTUS. 



Yellow-rumped Honey-guide. 



Indicator xanthonotus, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xi. p. 166 (1842), xiv. p. 198 1845.— Jerd. 111. Ind. Orn. 

 pi. 1. (1847).— Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. As. Soc. p. 65 (1849).— Bp. Consp. i. p. 100 (1850).— Jerd' 

 B. Ind. i. p. 306 (1862).— Cab. & Heine, Mus. Heine, Theil iv. p. 5, note (1862).— Blyth, Ibis, 1866, 

 p. 357.— Gray, Hand-1. B. ii. p. 205 (1870).— Jerd. Ibis, 1872, p. 10.— Hume, Str. F. 1873, p. 313.— Sto- 

 liczka, torn. cit. p. 425.— Sharpe in Rowley's Orn. Misc. i. p. 206 (1876).— Hurae, Str. F. 1879, p. 88. 



Indicator radclyffii, Hume, Ibis, 1870, p. 529. 



Pseudofr'mgilla xanthonotus, Hume, Str. F. 1873, p. 314. 



Pseudospiza xanthonotus, Sharpe, in Rowley's Orn. Misc, i. p. 207 (1876). 



The Honey-guides are better known in Africa than in India or any other part of the Old World ; several species 

 inhabit the former continent, and their habit of conducting people to bees' nests has gained them the familiar 

 appellation by which they are now universally known. In the Himalayas they are represented by the bird 

 now figured, while in Malacca a second species (/. malmjanus) occurs, which is again replaced in Borneo by 

 a third species, /. archipelagicus. These three Honey-guides are all extremely rare, and it is very doubtful 

 whether they are really congeneric with the Honey-guides of Africa. Mr. Hume has already pointed out 

 some structural differences in the Indian birds, and it may be found necessary to separate them generically 

 from their African relatives. 



The following description is copied from the article on Indicator published in the late Mr. Dawson Rowley's 

 ' Ornithological Miscellany': — 



" Adult male. Forehead, chin, and cheeks silky golden-yellow ; back and sides of the head and neck, and 

 interscapular region, blackish brown, every feather margined with olive-yellow. If the feathers of the head and 

 neck (but not of the interscapulary region) are lifted, their basal halves will be found to be yellowish white. The 

 wings and scapulars are black, or at any rate so deep and black a brown that most people would call them 

 black ; and all the coverts and quills, except the first few primaries, are conspicuously margined with bright 

 olive-yellow ; the tertiaries and longer scapularies with a conspicuous marginal white stripe on the inner 

 webs ; the tail black, the outermost tail-feathers (which are narrow, pointed, and 0'8 inch shorter than the 

 next pair) broadly tipped with white or greyish white, and with a streak of the same running up the shaft, 

 the next pair (which are about 0*3 inch shorter than the rest of the tail) similar, except that the white tipping 

 is confined to the inner web. Central portion of middle and lower back and rump bright orange-yellow, the 

 basal portions of the feathers paler, and many of them with a dusky streak or spot ; sides, rump, and upper 

 tail-coverts black, some of the longest of the latter margined with yellowish white. Breast dusky, with an 

 olivaceous tinge, and the feathers obscurely margined with olive-yellow ; edge of wing, wing-lining, and 

 axillaries silky yellow to yellowish white. Abdomen dull brown, the feathers broadly margined with brownish 

 white; flanks, vent, and lower tail-coverts blackish brown, the feathers conspicuously margined with dull 

 somewhat yellowish white ; the third quill is the longest, the second a hair's breadth at most, and the first 

 and fourth less than 0*1 inch shorter than the third ; the tarsus is between 0*5 and 06 inch in length, and 

 is feathered in front for its upper three fifths {Hume) ; eye small, the iris dark brown, the naked space round 

 the eye a very pale green ; bill yellow, somewhat dusky towards the tip ; at the base of both the upper and 

 lower mandible as well as on the chin there are black bristles ; but none exist above the nostrils, which are 

 large, triangular, and swollen ; feet pale greenish horny. Total length a little above 6 inches, wing 4, bill 

 at front 0*31, from gape half an inch (Stoliczka)" 



For the opportunity of figuring this species I am indebted to Major John Biddulph, who kindly lent me a 

 specimen which was given to him by the late Mr. Mandelli from Native Sikkim. [R. B. S.] 



