256 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
The exterior was thickly covered with cobwebs and bits of bark so as to 
render the nest the same in appearance as the branch on which it rested. 
The nest was cup-shaped and contained three eggs_, white marked with 
purple and brown. 
243. TEPHEODORNIS PELVICA. 
HODGSON^S WOOD-SHEIKE. 
Tentheca pelvica, Hodgs. Ind. Rev. i. p. 447. Tephrodornis pelvica, Jerd. B. 
Ind. i. p. 409 ; Hume, S. F. iii. p. 92 ; Bl. B. Burm. p. 122 ; Sharps, Cat, Bwds 
B. Mus. iii. p. 276 ; Hume ^ Dav. S. F. vi. p. 205 ; Hume, 8. F. viii. p. 91. 
Description. — Male. Forehead, crown and nape ashy grey ; back, sca- 
pulars and lesser wing- coverts ashy brown ; rump ashy brown, tipped with 
white and obscurely barred with brown ; the shorter upper tail -coverts 
white, the longer ones ashy brown ; tail ashy brown with a rufous tinge, 
all the feathers narrowly tipped with whitish ; the shafts reddish brown ; 
greater wing-coverts ashy brown, edged brighter ; quills ashy brown, with 
rufous shafts, all edged and tipped brighter ; nasal plumes, lores, ear-coverts 
and feathers under the eye black ; under this black a broad white streak ; 
lower plumage cinereous, tinged with buff on the breast and becoming 
albescent on the abdomen ; vent and under tail-coverts pure white ; the 
bill black ; eyelids dark plumbeous ; iris yellowish brown ; legs plumbeous 
brown ; claws dark horn-colour. 
The female has the forehead, crown and nape of the same colour as the 
back ; the black on the sides of the head is absent, the ear-coverts being 
merely a little darker than the crown of the head ; the bill is brown ; the 
gape and the base of both mandibles are flesh-coloured ; otherwise it does 
not differ from the male. 
The young resemble the adult female, but have the margins of all the 
feathers of the upper plumage whitish. 
Length 8*5 inches, tail 3*5, wing 4*5, tarsus '85, bill from gape 1'2. The 
lemale is a trifle larger than the male. 
Mr. Hume (/. c.) has made some interesting remarks on this species. 
He states that Tenasserim birds appear in some respects to grade into T. 
giilaris, which is the common species of the Malay peninsula. My men 
procured numerous specimens of T. pelvica at Malewoon, the extreme 
southern point of Tenasserim, and these birds do not bear out Mr. Hume^s 
statement ; they are in all respects the same as birds shot in Pegu and 
show no approach to T. gularis. In this latter species the head and back 
and the general aspect of the wings are bluish ashy, and the tail is nearly 
black. 
