1846.] or Little Known Species of Birds. 297 



fore I had examined it more particularly, as it was my intention to have 

 done. That such a crestless Edolius exists, however, in Peninsular 

 India is extremely doubtful.* 



In fine, I should not now be surprised if a most complete gradation of 

 specimens from the E. malabaroides of Nepal, with frontal crest two inches 

 and a half long, to the entirely crestless bird figured by Sonnerat, should 

 prove to be obtainable (as we proceed southward) in the countries lying 

 eastward of the Bay of Bengal; and such a gradation would, I think, be 

 due to the intermixture of a succession of allied races, rather than to clima- 

 tal or local variation of the same aboriginal race : such intermixture 

 decidedly taking place between Coracias indica and C. affinis, and be- 

 tween Treron phoenicoptera and Tr. chlorigaster, as also between the 

 different Kalidge Pheasants (as I shall take another opportunity of 

 shewing)f. The Edolii of peninsular India, I am not yet sufficiently 

 acquainted with. 



9. Dicrurus edoli/ormis, nobis, n. s. This well marked species 

 would seem to be a common bird in Ceylon. It much resembles the 

 ordinary sub-crested bird of the Malayan peninsula, except that its tail 

 is formed as in D. macrocercus, the caudal feathers being however some- 

 what broader. Three specimens are quite similar. Length of wing 

 five inches and three- eighths, of middle tail-feathers five inches, the out- 

 ermost an inch and a half, to an inch and three-quarters more ; bill to 

 gape an inch and three- eighths ; and tarse an inch. The form of bill and 

 plumage is as in E. malabaricus, the frontal crest being rather more de- 

 veloped than in the next species. 



10. D. viridescens, Gould, vide XI, 173 and 802, figs. 10 and 11. 

 Tail almost quadrate, with but a slightly furcate tendency. Both this 

 and the preceding are, in fact, Edolii, with the outermost tail-feathers 

 not prolonged as in that series of birds. 



* Since the above was written, the Society has been favoured by Mr. E. Lindstedt 

 with a fine specimen of an Edolius from Malacca, having a frontal crest half an inch 

 in length ; and I feel doubtful whether this and other Malacca specimens can be safely 

 identified with the bird having very long and very spiral outer tail-feathers, noticed in 

 the description of E. rangonensis, XI, 172, and the bill of which is figured at p. 802, 

 nos. 8 and 9. 



f Corvus corone and C. comix, and Motacilla lugubris and M. alba (apud Tem- 

 minck), afford similar cases of intermixture of wild races in Europe. The Society's 

 Museum contains a specimen of what is certainly the hybrid between Corvus corone 

 and C. comix, received from Norway ; and we have also the well known hybrid be- 

 tween Telrao urogallus and T. tetrix, from the same countrv. 



2 R 



