906 A Monograph of the Indian and [No. 130. 



Two species are confounded with it in Mr. Jerdon's elaborate cata- 

 logue of the birds of peninsular India, namely, the young of his doubt- 

 fully cited C.flavus, which is C. tenuirostris of Hardwicke and Gray, 

 and evidently identical with C. niger of Latham and Gmelin, and 

 the closely allied species which I refer to Sonneratii, Auctorum, both 

 of these having been sent me by Mr. Jerdon as the adult and young 

 of C. Himalayanus of his list. One of them agrees with all the pre- 

 ceding in having the tarse half-feathered, but the plumage of both is 

 much more closely barred, and the tail in particular (of C. niger at 

 least, for the other has this part too imperfect to judge from,) presents 

 as many as fifteen cross-bars in the young bird, wherein this agrees 

 with the female Coel. There would appear to be other Indian species 

 allied to these, which are at present very imperfectly known : and I 

 much suspect that all will prove to have the males glossed dusky-ash 

 of some shade, without markings except on the tail, while the females 

 are permanently barred or spotted, in which respect they would re- 

 semble the Coels (subgenus Eudynamys.) 



6. C. Sonneratii Latham, Ind. Orn. II, 215; le petit Coucou 

 des Indes Sonnerat, Voy. Ind. IV, 216; C. Himalayanus apud 

 Jerdon, Madr. Journ. XI, 220, where C. tenuirostris, Hardwicke 

 and Gray, is introduced as a synonym, the young of this being con- 



of the wings and the peculiar colour and markings of the tail, so that we have but 

 little doubt that they are of one species; although, in the young bird, the rufous 

 colour of the breast, and the bands on the body, are not so dark as in the supposed 

 adult from India. The vent and under-tail-coverts are light buff-colour." 



It may be remarked that Mr. Swainson is one of those authors who, in general, use 

 the term India in the vaguest signification, including the Burmese and Malay coun- 

 tries, if not all Southern Asia eastward of the Indus. Thus, to select one of many 

 instances, he remarks, of the Eurylaimi, that " their geographic limits seem to be 

 restricted to the hottest parts of India" (Class. Birds, II, 81 j ; the truth being, that 

 no species has yet been discovered in the "hottest parts of India," properly so called, 

 but there are two on the flanks of the Himalaya, a third in Assam, and proceeding 

 thence southward, to the east of the Bay of Bengal, the number increases in the 

 ceded Tenasserim provinces, and attains its maximum in the Malay Peninsula and 

 Islands; the two species first alluded to, however, not extending southward, so far as 

 has yet been observed. Consequently, one of the distinctive features of the Ornithology 

 of India, on the one hand, and of the Burmese and Malay countries on the other, 

 consists in the developement of this remarkable group in the latter ; and the impro- 

 priety of designating the whole by the appellation India, is especially apparent in the 

 case cited. 



