DETAILED LIST OF BIRDS. 
233 
fifteen miles of the plains of Yarkand. It had apparently- 
been recently breeding, as all the specimens obtained were 
young birds, one of them being scarcely fully fledged. 
[G. H.] 
It is just possible that I may not have correctly identified 
this species, and that the Yarkand birds may, although very 
closely allied to P. cyanus, prove a distinct species. I do 
not think so, but the only point which makes me doubtful 
is that Degland and Bree, the latter of whom by the way 
merely translates the former^s description, the only works of 
reference I have at hand in which the bird is mentioned (for 
it does not appear to be figured by Temminck and Laugier, 
as Bree states), both describe the lateral feathers of the tail 
the eye stripe narrower at the nape, and, according to Meyer, no blue spot 
on the abdomen. 
Young birds from YdrTcand. — Dimensions, from the dry skin : 
length 3 inches, wing 2*75, fourth and fifth primaries equal and longest, 
first primary 1-3 shorter, second primary 0 35 shorter, third primary 0*05 
shorter, sixth primary 0 025 shorter. Tail from vent 2"4, central tail 
feathers exceed external by 0'25. Bill from front, 0*29. Tarsus 0"75. 
Description. — Bill, legs, and feet, apparently dusky, the latter inclined 
to plumbeous in one specimen ; crown of the head, cheeks, ear-coverts, 
and the whole lower surface, white, with, in one specimen, a slaty grey 
bar on the crown. A broad dusky cyaneous bar on the nape, from which 
traces of a similarly coloured bar above the ear-coverts and running 
through the eye are visible. The whole back is of a dusky blue grey 
colour. Central tail-feathers dull blue, with a speck of white at 
the tips ; lateral tail-feathers, except the exterior ones, white on the 
outer webs, greyish brown on the inner, and more or less tipped with 
white ; the penultimate ones having the apical one-fourth white. 
Exterior laterals pure white, except just at the base of the inner web, 
where they are greyish ; quills grey brown on the interior webs ; the 
exterior web of the first primary white, of the second primary dull blue 
for the first quarter of its length, and white for the terminal three-fourths, 
of the third primary, dull blue for the basal two-fifths, and white for the 
terminal three-fifths ; the fourth primary has the blue and white in pro- 
portions of about three-sevenths and four-sevenths ; the fifth primary 
about half of each, the extent of the white diminishing on each succeeding 
primary ; no white margins to the secondaries, but broad white tips. 
Tertiaries almost entirely white except the basal halves of the outer webs ; 
wing-coverts dull ashy blue, all the greater ones broadly tipped with 
white, forming a conspicuous alar bar; lining of wing and the inner 
margins of the inner primaries and the secondaries towards their bases pure 
white. 
