1100 A Monograph of the Indian and [No. 131. 



fading to brown on the lores and chin, there is no rufous on the mid- 

 dle of the back, and the scapularies, tertiaries, and wing-coverts, are 

 suffused with fuscous ; irides pale dusky ; this proved a male, and on 

 no part of it is there a single cross-band. A female of the same age ac- 

 cords in size and in the texture of its feathers, but in colouring is widely 

 different ; the irides are dull blue, and the bill flesh-coloured, except 

 the upper half of the superior mandible, along its ridge, which is dus- 

 ky ; the other young specimen having the beak almost wholly dusky, 

 except at the lower part of the under mandible at base : general 

 colour of the upper parts black, barred with bright rufous ; of the 

 under parts greyish-dusky, barred with white ; tail glossy green-black, 

 with narrow white bars : the crown spotted with rufous, paling and 

 merely tipped with rufous on the occiput and neck ; and the wings 

 in particular very beautifully barred black and rufous, the latter 

 becoming obsolete on the exposed portion of the tertiaries : lores 

 and above the eye whitish. Another female moulting from this 

 barred dress into the adult livery has such feathers as remain 

 of the former different from those of the last described speci- 

 men ; its unchanged scapularies being rufous-brown without bar- 

 rings, much duller rufous than the new ones; the primaries, secon- 

 daries, and tertiaries, that remain, are barred with lighter dusky than 

 in the other; and the only unchanged tail-feather (one of the middle 

 pair) is crossed with eleven undulating narrow pale fulvescent bars. 

 This specimen had been intermediate in colouring to the two others. 

 In this barred dress it is the C entr opus fascia tus, C.W. Smith, J. A. S. 

 X, 659, and also Dr. Latham's alleged variety of his Antiguan Cuckoo, 

 (Gen. Hist. Ill, 247), upon which Shaw has founded his Polophilus 

 Sinensis ; but while Dr. Latham correctly describes the form, plum- 

 age, and habits of the present species, under the designation Chestnut 

 Coucal, he gives an alleged representation of the latter, evidently 

 copied from one of Gen. Hardwicke's drawings, which may possibly 

 represent a distinct species described as follows : — 



" One of these [Chestnut Coucals] in the collection of drawings 

 of Gen. Hardwicke, was eighteen inches in length; the head, neck, 

 and under- parts ash-coloured, streaked with white as far as the breast; 

 over the eye a whitish stripe; belly and thighs marked with transverse 

 lines of white; tail plain black, not greatly cuneiform, though much 



