1847-] New or Little Known Species of Birds. 469 



outermost and penultimate tail-feathers have no white at their tips, and 

 the ante-penultimate very little ; there being also a strong tinge of rufous 

 towards the subterminal black tail-band of the four middle tail-feathers, 

 which, with other indications, tends to show that this specimen was a 

 young male : its throat had been grey, with very flimsy feathers ; 

 but a line of firmer rufous feathers were being developed along the 

 middle of the throat. Another young specimen was moulting, and had 

 nearly acquired the mature livery of the presumed male ; but several 

 rufous feathers appear intermingled with the grey on its crown and 

 neck ; and a single penultimate tail-feather is retained, dark and without 

 subterminal black band and white tip, which shows that the male plu- 

 mage is obtained on the shedding of the first or nestling garb, and 

 consequently that the intermediate (or presumed feminine) plumage is 

 not assumed by the other sex. 



Corvus splendens, Vieillot, black variety ? Such appears to be a 

 single specimen of a Crow, received from Ceylon. 



Genus Crypsirina, Vieillot, treated of in XII, 932, and XV, 30. It 

 seems that Dendrocitta, Gould, is the name that must stand for the 

 group exemplified by Corvus rufus, Scop., Lath., v. Coracias vagabunda, 

 Lath. ; while Crypsirina, Vieillot (v. Phrennthrix, Horsf.), must be 

 reserved for the Corvus varians, Lath., v. Plirenothrix temia, Horsfield, 

 which is a very distinct type from the other.* Fine specimens of the 

 latter beautiful bird have lately been presented to the Society, by the 

 Rev. J. Barbefrom Maulmain, and by E. O'Ryley, Esq. from Amherst ; 

 thus confirming Heifer's statement of its occurrence in the Tenasserim 

 provinces, while on the Malayan peninsula it does not appear to have 

 been yet observed. This species is very remarkable (among birds of 

 the great passerine type of structure) for having but ten tail-feathers, 

 like the Drongosf ; and it is curious that, at first sight, the tail even 

 resembles that of a Drongo, in its expansion and exterior curl upward 

 at tip : but there is this essential difference, that the tail of Cr. varians, 

 instead of being forked, is, in the opposite way, extremely graduated 



* Mr. G. R. Gray has rightly separated them, in his Catalogue of the Genera of 

 Birds. 



t Except Cr. varians and the Drongos, the only truly passerine birds I know of thai 

 have fewer than twelve tail-feathers, are a few with rudimentary tails, as instanced by 

 Air, Hodgson's Pnoepyga, vide p. 137, ante. 



