PITTA CYANEA. 
SUE POLIS 
Pitta gigas, Blyth (nec Müll. & Schleg.), Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. vol. xii. 1843, р. 961 (juv.). 
Pitta cyanea, Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. vol. xii. 1843, р. 1008 (Arrakan).—Id. Cat. В. Mus. Asiat. 
Soc. Beng. 1849, p. 157. no. 911.—Gray, Gen. B. vol. i. 1846, p. 213, pl. 55.—Horsf. & Moore, 
Cat. В. Mus. E. Ind. Co. vol. 1. 1854, p. 182. no. 246 (Arrakan, Tenasserim).—Wall. Ibis, 1864, 
p. 108.—Gould, B. Asia, vol v. pl. 80.—Hume & Davis. Str. Feath. vol. vi. 1878, p. 238 
(Tenasserim).—Hume, Str. Feath. vol. viii. 1879, p. 93.—Bingham, Str. Feath. vol. ix. 1880, 
р. 473 (Kaukarit).—Sclat. Cat. B. vol. xiv. 1888, p. 417 (Bhotan, Burmah, Siam). 
Brachyurus cyaneus, Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. vol. xvi. 1847, p. 153.—Id. В. Burm. 1875, p. 98.— 
Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. vol i. 1850, p. 253.—Elliot, Ibis, 1870, p. 413.—Hume, Str. Feath. 
vol. iii. 1875, p. 107 (Upper Pegu). 
Gigantipitta cyanea, Bonap. Consp. Vol. Anis. 1854, p. 7. no. 175. 
Brachyurus ( Gigantipitta) cyaneus, Elliot, Mon. Pitt. 1863, pl. xiii. 
Eucichla cyanea, Oates, B. Brit. Burm. vol. i. 1883, p. 419.—Salvad. Ann. Mus. Civ. Gen. ser. 2, vol. v. 1887- 
88, p. 575 (Tenasserim).—Whitehead, Ibis, 1893, p. 506. 
HazsrrAT.—Bhotan, Burmah, Siam ; Tenasserim, Kareen Hills, 2000 feet (Wardlaw Ramsay). 
Male. Narrow stripe from culmen to occiput black ; forehead and crown brownish-grey ; lores and narrow 
stripe through the eye to the nape jet-black, beneath pale bluish ; feathers of occiput elongated into a 
crest, reddish-orange; cheeks and ear-coverts pale buff. Entire upper parts bright blue. Primaries 
pale brown, white on base of inner webs of the first six quills and a narrow white band on outer webs 
of 2nd to 7th ; secondaries broadly margined on outer webs with dark blue; under wing-coverts white. 
Chin and throat buffy-white, with an elongated black stripe on the sides of the latter, each feather with 
a white centre; beneath, the flanks and upper parts of abdomen bluish-white, thickly covered with 
black spots of varying size. Under tail-coverts white. Bill black; iris dark reddish-orange; legs aud 
feet dark fleshy-pink, claws whitish. 
Female. “Crest duller and paler; central coronal stripe less well-marked. All the feathers of the back and 
scapulars are more or less broadly margined with a sort of dull olive-green, which, owing to the 
overlapping of the feathers, is almost the only colour seen, the blue basal portion of the feathers 
only peeping through here and there. It is with this dull olive-green, and not with the blue, as in the 
male, that the secondaries, tertiaries, and coverts generally are suffused. On the lower surface the 
beautiful lavender-blue tinge is wholly wanting, and in the centre of the breast the somewhat greenish- 
blue tinge of the male is replaced by fulvous. In other respects the sexes do not differ.” (Hume, Str. 
Feath. vol. iii. p. 108.) 
Young male resembles the adult, but has black central streaks on the feathers of back and wing-coverts. 
This very beautiful bird has long been known to ornithologists, having been described 
by Blyth nearly fifty years ago. Davison states that it occurs in Tenasserim as far south 
as Tavoy. Nowhere very numerous, but most so in the north about Pahpoon, and further 
south about the bases of the south-western spurs of Mooleyit. In the north it frequents 
bamboo-jungle, and in the south tree-jungle. Its note cannot be distinguished from that 
of Pitta oatesi. It is more a bird of the plains than the hills. Bingham, /. e., found it 
plentiful at Kaukarit, in British Burmah, when he was there, and he saw two nests with 
Á eggs, and four with young. "The nest was a globular mass of earth, leaves, twigs, eps 
bound together with vegetable fibre, and lined interiorly эй roots. One measured 
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