BLACK-BACKED KALEEGE 39 
terminal margins, these becoming wide white bands on the wing-coverts, forming 
very conspicuous bars. In browner individuals the dorsal plumage is indistinctly 
mottled with dark reddish-brown and black, the warmer tone becoming strongest on 
the rump. Here too the terminal band loses its pure grey character and becomes 
increasingly buffy posteriorly. 
In the vermiculation of the middle tail-feathers se/anonotus has the red darker, 
more rufous and less buffy than in J/ewcomelanus, and, in the great majority of 
individuals, with a decided preponderance of greenish glossed black on the outer 
webs, in some specimens the rufous markings being almost obliterated. Then again 
in melanonotus the lateral tail-feathers are almost wholly unmarked greenish, lacking 
the paler vermiculation which in /eucome/anus often extends over the margins of 
several pairs. 
The lower plumage of a typical fresh melanonotus female shows a strongly 
contrasted black and white coloration, the latter colour forming a very. wide 
terminal band and grading into the black through a narrow buffy zone. In very 
brown individuals this buffy zone gives place to a more or less extensive area 
of rich dark rufous, merging abruptly into the black of the remainder of the 
feather. 
The facial skin is dark red, dotted with numerous featherlets, and the eye is dark 
hazel. The general degree of melanism is reflected very exactly in the pigmentation 
of the mandibles. In the lightest, reddest individuals the basal black covers only 
about half of the upper mandible, and is broken by two large lateral patches on the 
culmen, where the greenish horn predominates. In the dark birds, on the other 
hand, the upper mandible is almost or quite black, only the extreme tip showing the 
paler hue. The legs and feet are darker than in /eucomelanus. Weight, 1 |b. 14 ozs. 
to 2 lbs. 4 ozs. Length, 450 to 530; expanse, 630 to 680; wing, 220; tail, 200; 
tarsus, 70; middle toe and claw, 57 mm. 
VARIATION.—I wish here to speak of a most interesting and unexpected change 
in colour which I have observed in museum skins of female kaleege, an alteration 
which is especially noticeable in this very dark-plumaged bird. The extreme is to be 
observed in Blyth’s type which is in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. In the catalogue 
of the birds of the Asiatic Society this specimen is annotated, ‘‘Mr. Webb, 1845,” 
so that we may assume that it is about seventy-five years of age. The difference 
between this and the very brownest bird which I could secure in Sikhim is startling. 
Although, as far as I could learn, it has never been exposed to the light, yet it is 
paler than the palest of any fresh kaleege of any species, while when compared with 
a typical black melanonotus female, the two would never be suspected of close 
relationship. This is an extreme case, but I have carefully compared my fresh ‘skins 
of the three Himalayan kaleege females with those in the museums of London, 
Berlin, Paris and elsewhere, and invariably I have found a greater or lesser degree 
of paling—an apparent breaking down of the black pigment into a more primitive 
reddish brown. Even when this is slight it is sufficient to obscure the distinctness 
of the various species, which in comparatively fresh wild birds is quite obvious. 
The same is true in a lesser degree of the males, and I have a number of 
