1842.] Malayan species of Cuculida. 1103 



the name lepidus as to be cancelled, without (as in other cases) 

 placing the prior specific name in the opposite column. With regard 

 to Dr. McClelland's Assamese bird, of which but one specimen was 

 obtained, an excellent coloured figure of it is now in his possession, 

 which has enabled me to identify with it, beyond doubt ; a specimen 

 procured at Chyebassa by Lieut. Tickell. The following is the original 

 description by Dr. Horsfield: " Length twelve inches. The crown, 

 neck, scapularies, and secondaries, dusky, the shafts longitudinally 

 margined on each side with white : wing-coverts dusky or of a bay 

 colour, with white shafts : primaries also bay, and tipped with 

 dusky : the tail-feathers black, with a whitish terminal band, and 

 with their coverts barred with ferruginous : throat, fore-neck, breast, 

 and belly, white." Sir Stamford Raffles remarks that — " the colours 

 of this bird vary considerably at different ages. When young it is of 

 a greenish black, with rufous wings. As it becomes older, the belly 

 becomes whiter, the shafts of the feathers on the head and back acquire 

 a light colour, and the upper feathers of the tail become barred with 

 grey. It lives on insects, is chiefly observed on the ground, and has a 

 weak flight." 



The single specimen before me is fortunately in a transitional state 

 of plumage, which enables me to assert that its changes are analogous 

 to those of the preceding species. The dark first plumage is mention- 

 ed by Raffles, and the present specimen is a young male exchanging 

 its barred dress for the adult garb, which latter is far advanced to- 

 wards completion. Length fourteen inches, of which the tail measures 

 eight inches and a quarter, its outermost feathers four inches less ; 

 wing six inches ; bill to forehead (through the feathers) an inch, and 

 to gape an inch and a quarter ; tarse an inch and five-eighths, and 

 long hind-claw an inch and one-eighth, being (as Sir Stamford 

 Raffles notices) proportionally longer than in C. Phillipensis. Bill 

 pale horny, darker along the ridge of the upper mandible ; and feet 

 dusky-leaden : irides carmine. Wings rufous-chestnut, less dark than 

 in the preceding species, and tipped with dusky ; the tertiaries suf- 

 fused with fuscous, and such among them and of the secondaries as 

 remain unchanged, are brighter ferruginous barred on both webs with 

 black ; the new greater wing-coverts are each slightly margined with 

 a dusky line; the tail-feathers which have been renewed are wholly 



