G1 
1872.] W. T. Blanford — Zoology of SikJcm. 
but he adds that there are several of his Indian types unrepresented by 
European specimens. Under these circumstances I cannot help thinking it 
highly probable that there are really two distinct races, one found in Europe 
and Western Asia, the other in Eastern Asia, and that the two meet in 
India, and in the countries due North of India in which they interbreed. 
We know that India is the limit of Eastern and Western forms in several 
migratory birds, as Motacilla Luzoniensis and M. alba ;* Erythrosterna parva 
and E. leucura, &c., and the same may very possibly be the case with the 
tree pipits. Chinese examples would go far to settle this question. If they 
are identical with the species from Bengal, whilst birds from Western India 
are, as we are assured, undistinguishable from European examples, it will be 
fair to look upon intermediate forms as hybrids. 
I saw no tree pipits in Eastern or Northern Sikkim until about the 
20th September, then they appeared in considerable numbers. Two 
specimens which I have preserved are more olive above and more fulvous 
below than those usually shot in the plains of India. They have broad 
fulvous edges to the wing coverts and green margins to the quills, whilst 
these are whitish in birds from Central India. 
Comparing my specimens with the figure of Antlins arboreus in Gould s 
Birds of Europe, the bill in the former appears decidedly larger. 
601 Atvttttts stiuolatus, Blyth. — Common in all the northern parts 
of Sikkim. I found it in clearings at a little below 7 ,000 feet early in 
September, and at Phalung above 15,000 in the beginning of October. 
605 A. eosaceus, Hodgs. — It is, I believe, pretty generally admitted that 
this bird is distinct from (A. Cecilii, Sav. (= A. cervinus, Pall.). Mr. Hume 
is doubtful on the subject (Ibis 1871, p. 35), but Mr. Tristram (ib. p. 233,) 
is decidedly of opinion that it is a diflerent race, and he further separates as 
A. japonicus, Temm. and Schl., the race found in China, Eastern Siberia, f &c. 
Whether the latter be. not A. rosaceus, Hodgs., in winter plumage 
remains to be determined. I cannot believe that the birds with olive backs 
and yellow axillaries which abound in Sikkim are represented by any stage 
of plumage of A. Cecilii ; at least such specimens as I have seen are 
certainly different. Specimens obtained by Major Godwin-Austen on the 
Khasi Hills were precisely like mine from Sikkim. 
I found Anthus rosaceus common on the Chola range in August, and in 
the valleys of Northern Sikkim, from 12,000 to 15,000 feet. It doubtless 
breeds at these elevations, and it is, I believe, a constant resident in the 
Himalayas, rarely or never descending to the plains. I presume Mr. 
* Can if. dulchunensis be a hybrid race between these two. Some specimens from 
Western India have no more white on the wings than the European bird. 
+ Mr. G. B. Gray does the same in his Hand list, but marks A jwponicus as 
doubtful. 
