226 ' ORNITHOLOGY. 
description, taken from the Asiatic Researches/^ a work 
seldom now to be met with. I suspect some mistake in 
the dimensions given for the tarsus ; but whether these be 
right or wrong, the description is scarcely applicable to any 
stage of the present species with which I am acquainted. 
If the bird is not, as I believe, B. calcaratus, it should 
probably stand as B. citreoloides, Gould, and this name I 
have for the present assigned to it. 
One abnormal specimen, a female, which from its size 
and structure unquestionably, in my opinion, belongs to 
this same species, was killed near Shahidulla, on the 
Karakash River, on the 5th August. The peculiarity of 
this specimen is that the bright yellow of the head and 
under parts has been everywhere replaced by slightly dingy 
white, while the black of the back, &c., is replaced by dingy 
iron grey. \_A. 0. /f.] 
597. Pipastes arboreus (Bechstein). 
Of the Tree Pipit numerous specimens were obtained in 
the neighbourhood of Sanju and Oi Tograk in the plains of 
Yarkand. They were found in the fields among cultivation, 
and were precisely similar to the specimens obtained in the 
plains of India. [G. H.^ 
All these birds belong to the P. arboreus type. Great 
doubts have existed, which I long shared, as to the 
specific distinctness of P. agilis vel maculatus and P. 
arboreus; having recently had the opportunity of re- 
examining with Mr. Brookes an enormous series, consisting 
of more than 100 specimens of each form, we came to the 
conclusion that the two birds are at least easily separable, 
extending only two inches beyond the tips of the wings. Expanse of 
wings eleven inches ; weight, less than one ounce ; bill, \^ of an inch, and 
equal to head ; tarsus, ly^g- ; central toe, \^ • hind toe, -^-^ ; its claws, 
-j-^-g-. Above the flanks, grey slaty ; below, bright yellow. A yellow line 
on each side of the head above the eye from bill to nape. Wings : six 
central feathers and upper coverts of tail, black ; the great coverts of 
wings and the alar plumes very widely margined below and also tipped 
with white : the six lateral rectrices much blanched, increasingly to the 
extremes, which are nearly all white. Legs black, bill horn-grey, iris 
brown. Female considerably less ; six and three-quarters inches long, 
similar to the male but more dully coloured, and the alar and caudal black 
plumes of the male, brown in her.'* 
