THE SPECKLED PICULET. 
25 
feather tipped with orange ; remainder of the crown and nape green ; lores 
and nasal plumes yellow ; back, rump and upper tail-coverts olive-yellow; 
wings and coverts brown, broadly edged with olive-yellow ; tail black, the 
centre pair of feathers with the inner webs nearly entirely white, the three 
outer pairs of feathers with a large oblique white bar near the tip ; a broad 
occipital streak and a stripe under the eye and ear-coverts white ; ear- 
coverts blackish olive ; chin and throat whitish marked with black ; lower 
plumage yellow boldly spotted with black, the spots turning to bars on the 
flanks. 
The female differs in wanting the orange tips to the feathers of the fore- 
head and front portion of the crown, in having the lores whitish, and in 
having the lower plumage paler yellow. 
Male: bill plumbeous black; irides brown ; feet darkish plumbeous. 
Female : bill plumbeous or dusky plumbeous, lighter below ; irides brown ; 
feet plumbeous ; claws dusky. {Scully.) 
Length 4 inches, tail 1'4, wing 2*2, tarsus *4, bill from gape '7. The 
female is o£ the same size. 
The Speckled Piculet was obtained by Capt. Wardlaw Eamsay on the 
Karin hills east of Tonghoo at an elevation of 2000 feet. Mr. Blyth states 
that it occurs in Tenasserim ; and this has been confirmed by Capt. Bingham, 
who procured a specimen in March in the Thoungyeen valley. There is 
no other record of its occurrence in British Burmah. 
It is found in Cachar, the Khasia hills and throughout the Himalayas, 
as well as in the Wynaad. It has been said to extend into China, where 
Pere David observed it in Fokien, Setchuen and on the frontier of Kokonor ; 
but Mr. Hargitt informs me that specimens from these localities in the 
Paris Museum really belong to V. chinensis. The same or a closely allied 
species occurs also in Sumatra. 
This small bird, according to Dr. Jerdon, is found in tangled brushwood 
and among dead and fallen trees in damp spots, hunting about among the 
decaying bark for various insects. Dr. Scully, however, found it to be 
more of a tree-bird in Nipal. In the Himalayas it breeds in April and 
May, laying as many as seven eggs in a hole in a branch of a tree. The 
eggs are white. 
V. chinensis, Hargitt, is a closely allied race, differing in being larger 
and in having the crown of the head rufescent brown instead of green. 
