582 Notices and Descriptions of various new [No. 164. 



to England [one of these, however, being there only known as an exces- 

 sively rare straggler] ; two others are found in the north and east of 

 Europe* ; and a fifth has been received from the Himalaya mountains. 

 M. Temminck includes A. alpinvs in his catalogue of the birds of 

 Japan." The discovery of four Himalayan species, all different from 

 those of Europe, is accordingly no small accession to the known spe- 

 cies of the present group ; and it is likely that the mountain ranges of 

 Central Asia will be found to yield several more. 



, Locustella .rubescens, nobis. Without having a specimen of the 

 British L. Rail for comparison, I sufficiently well remember that 

 bird (of which I have shot many) to be enabled to state that the pre- 

 sent one is a true Locustelle, having merely a rather shorter tail, and 

 the legs (I think) are somewhat stouter than in its British congener. 

 The general characters, however, are quite the same. Length six inches, 

 by seven and three-quarters in spread of wing ; the closed wing two 

 inches and a half ; and tail two inches, its outermost feathers half an 

 inch less ; bill to gape three-quarters of an inch, and tarse seven- 

 eighths. Irides dark hazel. Bill dusky horn, pale at base of lower 

 mandible ; and legs light brown. Colour of the back ruddy-brown, 

 with black centres to feathers ; of the crown dusky, with olivace- 

 ous lateral margins to each feather ; sides of neck plain olivaceous, 

 as are also those of the breast ; throat and belly white, the front of 

 the neck tinged with fulvescent-brown, which is likewise the hue of the 

 flanks ; lower tail-coverts fulvescent-brown, the longer of them darker 

 with whitish tips ; rump and tail dark ruddy-brown, all but the mid- 

 dle feathers of the latter slightly tipped with grey, with traces of 

 barred markings of the same underneath ; wings dusky, the coverts 

 margined with olivaceous, and the large alars with ruddy-brown ; tips 

 of the tertiaries a little albescent ; a narrow whitish line from bill 

 to occiput, and slight medial dusky lines on the hindmost feathers 

 of the flanks. A single specimen of this bird was shot in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Calcutta, in the month of March. On dissection, the 

 muscles of its legs were observed to be very thick, with stiff rigid 

 tendons, as in the British Locustelle. 



* Surely that of northern Europe here alluded to, is not the so-called A. calliope 

 of M. Temminck, v. Calliope camtschatkensis, (Lath.)?: a bird common in Low- 

 er Bengal during the cold season, but certainly having no particular affinity for 

 Accentor. 



