984 Mr. Blyth's Report for December Meeting, 1842. [No. 143. 



female is without this, and has the upper-parts glossless olive-green : 

 beak blackish, the base of the lower mandible white in the female; 

 and legs dusky. Inhabits Nepal and Bootan.* 



I may notice here a beautiful little Nepal bird lately sent by Mr. 

 Hodgson, which hardly seems to me to belong strictly to the Nectaru 

 nidcB, though it is evidently a soft-billed honey. sucker, and I know 

 not what else to approach it to. Mr. Hodgson styles it 



Myzornis pyrrhoura. The bill of the specimen is mutilated of its 

 extremity, but would appear to have been slightly curved and pointed, 

 moderately slender, depressed, but the ridge of the upper mandible 

 distinctly angulated ; nostrils almost closed by an impending scale; 

 and the gape furnished with some delicately fine vibrissa of moderate 

 length : tarse longer than the middle toe with its claw; toes of mean 

 length, the outer and middle basally connected; claws moderately 

 curved, that of the hind toe much larger than the others; wings much 

 graduated, having the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th primaries subequal, and 

 the 3rd shorter than the 8th : tail even : plumage soft, dense and copi- 

 ous, very puffy over the rump, and the feathers of the head scale-like, but 

 not rigid. Length about four inches and a quarter, of which the bill 

 probably exceeds half an inch from the forehead, and the tail measures 

 an inch and a half; wing two inches and three-eighths ; tarse thirteen- 

 sixteenths of an inch ; and hind-toe and claw nine-sixteenths of an inch. 

 Colour a fine lively green, becoming bright emerald-green on the 

 scale-like feathers of the forehead and crown, which have well defined 

 black centres; lores deep black, continued to beyond the eyes: under- 

 pays paler and tinged with verdigris- grey, having a slight rufous cast 

 on the throat; lower tail-coverts bright yellow: wing-coverts and ter- 

 tiaries green like the back; primaries black, the first eight having 

 white tips, and all but the graduated outer primaries having their ex- 

 terior edge partly white; secondaries margined with rufous and then 

 with white, except towards their tips, whereon also they have a terminal 

 white spot; tail dusky, washed with greenish, its feathers having 



* In the article Souimanga by M. Drapiez, of the Diet. Class, d' Hist. Nat., several 

 species are mentioned which are not enumerated in Sir W. Jardine's Synopsis of the 

 Nectarinics ; and some of these are assigned to Bengal, or to India, (the latter a very 

 vague term as currently employed, being not unfrequently synonymous with what is 

 aggregately called " the East"). I much question, however, if any of these, supposing 

 them to be really distinct, appertain to India proper. 



