46b Notices arid Descriptions of various [May, 



upon some of the partially cultivated alluvial islands up the river ; and 

 recently shot one, near Midnapore, in the act of running up the perpen- 

 dicular hole of a tree, in the manner of a Woodpecker. It is very 

 seldom that the Wryneck is seen to climb ; and that it ever does so 

 has, I think, been denied : but in England I once winged one of these 

 birds, and placing it on the trunk of a tree, it immediately ascended 

 with such celerity that I nearly lost it, pressing its soft tail against the 

 bark, as the stiff tail of a Woodpecker or Tree-creeper is applied.* 



Eudynamys orieatalis, (Lin). Two males received from Ceylon seem 

 to have fed on some fruit that has stained and affected the healthy 

 condition of their beaks, which are of a blackish colour, with rugous 

 exterior, instead of being smooth and of a pale greenish hue, as usual. 

 This bird seems perfectly identical in India, China, and the Malay 

 countries ; but the Australian Coel (Eu. australis, Sw.), which was con- 

 founded with it by Messrs. Vigors and Horsneld, is constantly larger ; 

 the wing, in three males now before me, measuring 8| in. instead of 1\ 

 in. \ and the tail 8^ in. instead of 7\ in. : one of these specimens has 

 two unmoulted secondaries in one wing, of its first plumage, which are 

 barred rufous and black, but very unlike the corresponding feathers of 

 a female or young male of the Asiatic species. 



Rhinortha chlorophcea, (Raffles.) Upon a former occasion (XIV, 

 199), I asserted the specifical identity of the previously supposed two 

 species of Rhinortha; but I find that the two phases of plumage 

 observable in this bird seem to be characteristic of the adult male and 

 female, rather than of the adult and young. Thus, the grey-headed 

 bird with rufous tail — Cuculus chforophceus, Raffles, v. Phoenicophaus 

 canicepSy Vigors, and Anadwnus rufus, Swainson, — appears to be the 

 male ; and the rufous-headed bird with barred black tail — Rh. lucida, 

 Vigors, v. An. rufescens, Swainson, and Phoenicophaus viridirostris, 

 Eyton — to be the adult female : the former being described, and the 

 latter figured, as Bubutus Isidorei by M, Lesson, in the Zoology of M. 

 Belanger's voyage. I have obtained a young specimen, with its wing 

 and tail-feathers not fully grown : and this resembles the (presumed) 

 adult female, except that its upper tail-coverts are dusky-rufous ; the 



* Since the ubove was written, Lieut, Blagrave has sent two specimens of Wrynecks 

 from the Upper Provinces ; and these approximate the European bird, more than any 

 other Indian Wrynecks that I have yet seen, 



