350 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
331. PASSER ASSIMILIS. 
THE ALLIED HOUSE-SPARROW. 
Passer assimilis, Wald. Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, v. p. 218 ; Bl. B. Burm. p. 94 ; 
Hume, S. F. iii. p. 157 ; Hume ^ Bav. S. F. vi. p. 407 ; Hume, 8. F. viii. p. 107 ; 
Wardlaw Ramsay, Tweedd. Mem., App. p. 668. 
Description. — Male. The wliole upper plumage from the nostrils to the 
rump deep chestnut ; upper tail-coverts greyish brown with dark shaft- 
stripes ; the feathers of the back with the inner webs black at the tip ; 
lores^ feathers round the eye and over the ear-coverts brown ; cheeks^ ear- 
coverts and sides of the neck pure white j a broad black streak from the chin 
over the throat to the upper breast, where it becomes wider ; lower plumage 
sooty brown; lesser wing -coverts chestnut; median coverts black_, broadly 
tipped with pure white ; greater coverts brown_, edged with pale rufous and 
tipped with whitish; primaries and secondaries dark brown_, narrowly edged 
with pale rufescent, the third to the seventh primaries with a broader 
edge of the same at the base of the outer webs ; tertiaries blackish, edged 
with chestnut ; tail brown, edged paler. 
Female. Head and nape brown, tinged with rufescent, the feathers of the 
forehead with darker centres ; back rufescent brown, the terminal portion 
of the inner webs black and the outer webs paler than the inner ones ; 
rump pale chestnut ; upper tail-coverts greyish brown ; tail brown ; a 
distinct supercilium pale rufescent ; lores and a short streak behind the eye 
dark brown ; cheeks and ear-coverts grey ; a large patch below the ear- 
coverts fulvous-yellow ; chin and throat dark brown ; lower plumage 
greyish brown, fulvescent or yellowish on the abdomen ; under tail-coverts 
brown, edged with yellowish ; lesser wing-coverts rufescent ; median coverts 
dark brown, broadly tipped with pure white ; greater coverts dark brown, 
narrowly edged with whitish ; quills dark brown, narrowly edged with pale 
rufescent, the third to the seventh primaries with a broader edge of the 
same near the base of the outer webs ; tertiaries and inner coverts dark 
brown, edged more broadly with rufous. 
Length 4*5 inches, tail 1*7, wing 2'7, tarsus '65, bill from gape '55. 
The female is of about the same size. 
The above description of the male is taken from the type specimen, and 
the description of the female from a bird procured by Captain Wardlaw 
Ramsay in Karennee. This Sparrow differs from P. rutilans of S. China 
in being much smaller, P. rutilans having a wing 2*9 and a tail of 2 inches. 
In P. assimilis the black of the throat in the male comes down over the 
upper breast, instead of being confined to the throat ; it also has the tips 
of the median wing-coverts pure white, not tinged with rufescent as in 
