60 w. T. Blanford — Zoology of SiJclcim. [No. 1> 
Young birds are uniformly grey on the head and hack, sides of head and 
lower parts white, with a narrow black pectoral gorget. 
Without specimens I cannot tell if this bird differs from M. lugubris, 
Pall. Tho Japanese bird called M. lugens by Temminck and Schlegel in 
the Fauna Japonica {HI. japonica, Swinhoe), and considered by them to be 
Pallas’s bird, is shewn hy Tristram (Ibis, 1866, p. 291,) to be entirely distinct, 
it being easily recognised by the greater portion of the primary quills being 
white, and Mr. Tristram considers the true _3 [. lugubris, Temminck, to be an 
African species. But Mr. J. It. Gray in bis ‘ Hand list’ gives the locality for 
Jlf. lugubris, Pall., (a different bird probably from Temminck’s) as Northern 
Asia and Persia, and quotes the figure in Gould’s birds of Europe. 
Now the bird in winter plumage on Gould’s plate agrees very well with 
JtT. ILodgsoni, and the bird in summer plumage only differs in having a 
narrow white line from behind the eye to the lower breast somewhat as in 
M. alba. The figures rather exceed the Sikkim birds in size, but in most of 
Gould’s figures the dimensions are a little too large. The bill too in the plate 
appears a little shorter. I cannot, therefore, feel sure that the forms are 
identical, but I think it very probable that they are. 
I met with no wagtails in Eastern Sikkim, but on ascending to about 
12,000 feet in the Lachung valley I found them common. It is probable that 
they breed here, for I had seen none in the lower valleys, and but few 
migratory birds had made their appearance on September 11th when I first 
met with them. All were beginning to change their plumage. 
Bun i'tes vi hi nis, Gm. — A single young specimen in grey plumage was 
obtained at Yeomatong (12,000 feet) on the 13th September. It was 
doubtless migrating. 
Alaudidce. 
696 Pipastes agtxis ? Sykes. — Whether the common Indian tree pipit 
is to be called P.plumatus, Mull., P. arboreus, Bechst,, P. agilis, Sykes or 
P. maculatus, Hodgs., I must leave others to decide. On Mr. Blyth’s 
authority, Dr. Jordon in his appendix refers Ant 1ms agilis, Sykes, to A. 
arboreus, and substitutes Mr. Hodgson’s name maculatus for the Indian 
race. Mr. Blyth in his commentary in the Ibis, 1867, p. 31, uses Sykes’s 
name, but says that Sykes’s type has more the appearance of the European 
trivialis (= arboreus— plumatm teste Gray Hand list, p. 251). Von Pelzeln 
(Ibis, 1868, p. 312,) is inclined to unite the Indian and European forms, but 
almost all European writers keep them distinct.* Lastly Mr. Hume (Ibis, 
1870, p. 287,) points out that in his large collection he has representatives 
of all the varieties of the Eurojiean tree pipit, together with numerous forms 
intermediate between them and the forms described by Hodgson and Sykes, 
* Comp. Walden, Ibis, 1868, p. 312 note. Gray, Hand list 1. c., &c. 
