SIPHIA tickellij:. 
(THE BLUE REDBREAST.) 
Muscicapa hyacintha, Tickell, J. A. S. B. 1833, ii. p. 574. ^ * c u 
Oyornis banyumas [nee Horsf.), Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 941 , id. Cat. B. us. . . . 
p. 173 (1849) ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 446 (1862). _ 
Cyornis tickellioe, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 941 ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. > 
Lloyd, Ibis, 1872, p. 197 ; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 436 ; Ball, ibid. 1874, p. ; 
Butler & Hume, ibid. 1875, p. 468. ^ 
Cyornis jerdoni. Gray, Hand-1. B. i. p. 325 (1869); Jerdon, Ibis, 1872, p. 12o , Ho su. 
P.Z.S. 1872, p. 442; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 18. 
Siphia tickellioe, Sharpe, Cat. B. iv. p. 447 (1879). 
Marawa, Sinhalese. 
AdvM male and female. Length 5-6 to 5-9 inches ; wing 2-7 to 2-95 ; tail 2-3 to 2-6 ; tarsus 0-65 to 0-7 ; mid toe and 
claw 0'65 ; bill to gape 0‘7 to 0'77. 
Male. Iris brown ; bill blackish ; legs and feet bluish brown, dusky bluish, or bluish grey. 
Head and entire upper surface (including the sides of the neck), wings, and tail dull blue, brightening at the forehea , 
above the eye, and on the point of wing into shining cmrulean blue ; inner webs of the rectrices and quills and the 
outer primaries wholly blackish brown ; lores, face, and along the base of the under mandible to the chin bluish 
black ; throat (commencing at a point between the dark blue sides), neck, and chest fine fulvous rufescent, paling 
off on the sides of the breast and flanks to light fulvous, and leaving the centre of breast and abdomen with the 
under tail-coverts white. 
Obs. In the damp southern forests are to be found dark rufous-chested examples of this species with a broad max- 
illary stripe exceeding that of specimens from other parts of the island by O’l inch, and with the abdomen an 
under tail-coverts very faintly washed with rufous, forming, in fact, a link between the present species an le 
Javan bird ((7. banyumas). I possess such a specimen from the timber-jungles of Opate. 
Female. Bill less black ; legs and feet bluish, paler than in the male. w • i 
Above a lighter or faded blue, with a less brilliant frontal stripe and shoulder-patch ; lores fulvous grey , c ee s ui , 
without the chin-stripe ; chin whitish, deepening to light rufescent fulvous on the chest, and paling on the flan s 
as in the male. 
Young male. Legs and feet light bluish. Head and hind neck brown, with fulvous-yellow mesial Imes ; back brown, 
suffused with fulvescent, and each feather with a terminal spot of the same ; wing-cover swi . chest 
brighter hue than the markings of the back; quills and tail as in the beneath the 
fulvescent, with a faint indication of a stripe along the edge of the lower -audible, and 
edged dusky. The clothing-feathers are doffed at a very early age, and the blue of the back, together 
rufous hues of the underparts, soon assumed. 
Young fermle. Legs and feet fleshy; upper parts duller brown than the male, with central stripes and terminal 
spots of fulvous ; chest pale bufi-white, darkly edged. 
Obs. This is the species styled by Jerdon in his ‘ Birds of India ’ C. iiLelliw, 
by Gray in his ‘ Hand- list.’ Blyth, however, had (fcc.at.) ^ jgrdon’s bird. In ‘ The Ibis ’ 
and this was afterwards found by Major Hayes oy " . ® ^ interesting letter dated from Kattiawar ; and subse- 
for 1872, p. 197, he gives the history of this discovery - ^ J ^ ^^^^er of course, styled C. tkhdlice. 
quently, as Blyth’s name had pnonty over Grays the ^ J ^utongh some individuals I have 
Ceylon specimens do not differ from examples from various parts oi i , s 
