THE BLACK-HEADED GROUND-BABBLER. 
63 
even part of the breast white, and the greater part o£ the abdomen un- 
streaked white, clouded with the same brownish rufescent buff that covers 
the throat of the specimens at the other end of the scale, and with the 
brown striated feathers almost confined to the sides of the breast and 
flanks. The two types look rather different at first sight, but they run 
into each other, and the birds are structurally identical.^'' 
The legs, feet and claws vary from pale brown and brown to pale fleshy 
brown and dusky fleshy ; the upper mandible from brown to black, the 
lower mandible pale to dark plumbeous ; the irides brown to light brown, 
to cinnabar, or again sienna-brown and to deep brown. [Davison.) 
Length about 4*5 inches, tail 1, wing 2*1, tarsus '9, bill from gape '8. 
The sexes do not appear to differ in size. 
This Babbler is only known to occur in Burmah, in Tenasserim, on 
Mooleyit mountain at elevations o£ 5000 feet and upwards. 
It has been procured at Klang and Selangore in the Malay peninsula 
and in Sumatra. Colonel Godwin-Austen got it in Munipore, and it 
probably will be found in the higher hill-ranges of Arrakan and the Indo- 
Burmese countries. 
Mr. Davison observes that they were generally seen in pairs, occasionally 
three or four together, hopping about on the ground or about the stems of 
the undergrowth only in the densest portions of the forest. They are not 
shy and do not fly unless very closely pressed. 
Genus DRYMOCATAPHUS, 
65. DRYMOCATAPHUS NIGEICAPITATUS. 
THE BLACK-HEADED GROUND-BABBLER. 
Brachypteryx nigrocapitata, Eijton, P. Z, S. 1839, p. 103. Drymocataphus 
nigricapitatus, Salvad. Ucc. Born. p. 219 ; Tiocedd. Ibis, 1877, p. 308 ; Hume 
8r Dav. S. F. vi. p. 275 ; Huine, S. F. viii. p. 96. 
Description. — Male and female. The lores, a broad supercilium reaching 
to the nape, and the cheeks grey, each feather with a white shaft-stripe ; 
ear-coverts ashy rufous with whitish shafts ; a moustachial stripe black ; 
chin and throat white ; sides of neck and whole lower plumage ferruginous, 
brightest on the breast, and tinged with brown on the flanks, lower 
abdomen, vent and under tail-coverts ; forehead and top of head to nape 
black ; the whole upper plumage, wings and tail deep ferruginous brown, 
the inner webs of the wing-quills being plain brown. 
Writing of two birds procured in Tenasserim, Messrs. Hume and 
