852 Drafts for a Fauna Indica. [No. 168. 



Tr. bicincta has a broad whitish terminal band to the tail, as seen un- 

 derneath, and which appears of a dull ash- colour above. No two species 

 can be more obviously distinct. 



Tr. malabarica : Vinago malabarica, Jerdon, 77/. Ind. Orn. (Art. 

 V. bicincta) : V. aromatica, apud Jerdon, catal. (the male) ; and V. 

 affinis, Jerdon, ibid, (the female) : also V. aromatica of Southern India, 

 Jardine's Nat. Libr., Columbidce. This bird exactly resembles Tr. 

 nipalensis in size and colouring, except in having a yellower throat in 

 both sexes ; but is at once distinguished by the very different form 

 of its beak, and by having no naked space round the eyes ; the buff 

 tinge on the breast of the male is also more decided ; and its legs are 

 ' lake-red.' The female may be distinguished from that of Tr. bicincta, 

 by the ash-colour of its forehead and entire crown, and by its unspread 

 tail being wholly green above. 



Mr. Jerdon's specimens of this bird were obtained on the Western 

 Coast of the Peninsula, and at the foot of the Neilgherries. I have 

 never seen it from Northern India ; but to the eastward it inhabits 

 Assam,* Sylhet, Tipperah, and appears to be equally common with 

 Tr. nipalensis in the island of Ramree, Arracan. 



There is a nearly allied species in the Nicobar Islands, Tr. chlorop- 

 tera, nobis, which differs in its superior size, having the wing seven 

 inches, instead of six to six and a quarter ; and in the male hav- 

 ing a large portion of the fore- part of its wing green, instead of deep 

 maronne ; its breast also is less tinged with fulvous, and the forehead 

 more albescent. 



Columba pompadora, Gmelin, founded on PI. XIX and XX of Brown's 

 Zoology (1776), should be another nearly allied species, inhabiting 

 Ceylon : but as both figure and description represent the back to be 

 green, instead of maronne, like the rest of the mantle ; and as it is also 

 described as " smaller than the turtle-dove," it clearly cannot be Tr. 

 malabarica, and is probably a sort of representative (as regards its di- 

 minutive size) of Tr. olax of the Malay countries. 



C. Sphenurus, Swainson : Sphenocercus, G. R. Gray, Hurrials 

 with cuneiform tail, of which the central feathers are, in some spe- 

 cies, much elongated beyond the rest, and their prolonged tips at- 

 tenuated ; with the basal two- thirds or more of the bill soft and 



* It is figured among Dr. McClelland's drawings of the birds of Assam. 



