THE JAVA FANTAIL. 
267 
252. RHIPIDURA JAVANICA. 
THE JAVA FANTAIL. 
Muscicapa javanica, Sparrm. Mus. Carls, iii. pi. 75. Leucocerca javanica, 
Salvad. Ucc. Born. p. 135 ; Bl. B. Burm. p. 132 ; Hume ^ Bav. S. F. V\. p. 226 ; 
Hume, S. F. p. 92, ix. p. 175 (footnote). Leucocerca infumata, Hume, 
S. F. i. p. 455. Rhipidura javanica, Sharpe, Cat. Birds B. Mus. iv. p. 332. 
Description. — Male. Forehead^ crown and sides o£ the head sooty brown ; 
the whole upper plumage and the wings brown washed with rufous ; tail 
dark brown^ the four outer pairs of feathers broadly tipped with white ; 
the pair next these very narrowly tipped white; a short supercilium 
white j chin and a band across the upper breast blackish brown ; flanks 
and thighs brown^ the latter tipped with white ; axillaries brown^ broadly 
edged with white ; under wing-coverts mixed black and white ; the remain- 
ing lower plumage white. 
The female has the lower plumage^ from the breast downwards, tinged 
with buff. 
The young have all the upper plumage, the quills and the wing-coverts 
margined with reddish brown ; the pectoral band is pale and badly defined, 
and the lower plumage is washed with buff as in the adult female. 
Irides brown; bill black, fleshy at the base of the lower mandible. 
[Davison.) 
Length 7*5 inches, tail 3*6, wing 3, tarsus '75, bill from gape '7. The 
female is smaller. 
The Java Fantail was recorded from Mergui by Mr. Blyth many years 
ago. Mr. Davison met with it in Tenasserim, where it appears to frequent 
the neighbourhood of the sea-coast from Tavoy southwards. 
It extends into Siam and Cochin China, and down the Malay peninsula 
to Java, Sumatra and Borneo. 
Mr. Davison noticed that this species in Tenasserim seemed to prefer the 
mangrove-swamps to almost any other locality, and he adds that he never 
met with it far from the coast. 
