428 Notices and Descriptions of various [May, 



Teeth £ |:| |:f = 40 ; the two first molars only, on each side, false 

 and compressed, and not the three first as in Sus, which has \, or one 

 more, above and below. Tushes moderately elongated and not much 

 curved — according to information and to the specimen, which latter, on 

 this point only, is hardly adequate to fix the type. 



Notices and Descriptions of various New or Little Known Species of 



Birds. By Ed. Blyth, Curator of the Asiatic Society s Museum. 



(Continued from page 157.) 



Motacillidce. This is a strongly marked family of birds, especially 

 characterized by the lengthened and pointed tertiaries (as in the Plovers 

 and Sandpipers), by the regular double moult,* and by the ambulatory 

 gait of the species. I consider them to be nearly allied by affinity, 

 neither to the Enicuri nor to the Larks ; although the Water Wagtails 

 resemble, to a certain extent, the former in their colours, as is common- 

 ly the case with animals frequenting the same haunts ; and the Pipits 

 resemble, in like manner, the Larks, not only in colouring but in the 

 elongation of the hind-claw. 



Motacilla y L. (as now restricted). Of this there are three Indian 

 species. 



M. maderaspatana, Brisson (nee Lin.) : M. maderaspatensis, Gm. ; 

 M. maderas et M. variegata, Stephens (nee variegata, Vieillot) ; M. 

 picata, Franklin : Pied Wagtail of Latham. Inhabits Upper India, 

 and the peninsula; but I have never known it to occur below the 

 Bajmahl hills in Lower Bengal, though Calcutta is given as the locality 

 of a specimen in Rev. Zool. &c, 1839, p. 40. The skin referred to 

 may have been brought from Calcutta ; but it may be doubted whether 

 the fresh bird was obtained there. I have once seen it from Dar- 

 jeeling ; but never from the countries eastward of the Bay of Bengal. 



* Mr. Yarrell remarks—" Having- frequently examined specimens of our Wagtails 

 in the spring- of the year when they were assuming either their change of colour or the 

 additional brilliancy of tint, peculiar to the breeding season, without finding any new 

 feathers in progress, I am induced to consider the vernal change in these birds as so 

 many instances of alteration effected in the colour of the old feathers, and not a change 

 of the feathers themselves." * British Birds,' 1, 383. My own observation, both in Eng- 

 land and in India, and in caged birds as well as in wild ones, is directly the reverse. I 

 have shot many during the vernal moult (Motacilla, Budytes, and Anthw),md have 

 even found it difficult to get one that was not changing its feathers. 



