ALCIPPE NIGEIEEOiXS. 
(THE CEYLON WEEN-BABBLER.) 
(Peculiar to Ceylon.) 
Alcip 2 )e nigrifrons, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1849, xviii. p. 815 ; id. Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 340 
(1849); Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 122 (1852); Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 
1853, xii. p. 269; Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 302; Legge, J. A. S. (Ceylon Branch) 
p. 42 (1870-71) ; Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 446 ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 18 ; id. Str. 
Feath. 1875, p. 367. 
Tlie Mountain-Thrush, Kelaart ; “ QuaJcer-Thrush," popularly in India. 
Batitchia, Sinhalese. 
Similis A. atricipiti, seel minor, et fronts tantum nigra distinguenda. 
Adult male and female. Length 4-9 to 5-3 inches ; wing 2T5 to 2-3 ; tail 1-7 to 1‘9 ; tarsus 0-8 to 0-9 ; mid toe and 
claw 0'7 to 0‘75 ; bill to gape 0’65 to 0'7. 
Eomales are the smaller of the sexes. 
Iris yellowish white or very pale yellow ; bill, gape, and culmen dark brown, margins of the upper and lower mandible 
fleshy ; legs and feet fleshy lavender, claws dusky. 
Forehead, face, and ear-coverts dull black, blenduig into the rusty brown of the occiput, upper surface, wings, and 
tail ; outer primaries pale-edged ; tail nigrescent towards the extremity and distinctly cross-rayed ; beneath, the 
throat, neck, breast, and abdomen sullied white, with a dusky shade on the sides of the chest ; flanks and under 
tail-coverts olivaceous rufescent ; under wing-coverts and inner edges of quills beneath fulvescent buff. 
Tlie amount of black on the head \aries, being continued further back in some specimens than in others. 
Ohs. There is a marked difference in the tint of the upper surface of this species according to the locality it inhabits. 
Examples from the south of the island and from the Western Province are, as described above, rusty brown, while 
those from the colder climate of the upper hills are decidedly olivaceous on the back and wing-coverts ; specimens 
from the north of Ceylon are, as a rule, intermediate betw'een the tw'o. Although individuals vary mte 7 ' se in 
the amount of ferruginous tint present on the back, the up-country race will be found, as a whole, to be decidedly 
less rust-coloured than the low-country birds. The same character, as already observed, is exemplified in the 
Scimitar- Babbler, Fomatoi-hiniis melamirus. 
Young. Ihe nestling has the iris olive, but in plumage almost entirely resembles the adult, the forehead only 
differing in being less nigrescent. 
Ohs. The Ce 3 donese species is allied to the South-Indian A. atrice^ps, Jerdon, to which another closely affined race 
has lately been discovered by Mr. Bourdillon and described by Mr. Flume under the name of A. hourdilloni. 
A. atriceps has the head, face, and nape black, in addition to the forehead ; the wings and tail are brow'uish olive 
(resembling in this pai’ticular oiu’ up-country birds, but paler even than they are), and the species is somewhat 
larger than ours, fepecimens in the national collection measure 2'3 inches in the wing. A. hourdilloni has the 
black cap replaced by a brown one, and has the bill and tarsi stouter than in the last mentioned ; the wdng 
measures 2-4 inches. The Nilghiri Quaker-Thrush (A. poioceplicda) is larger than any of the foregoing ; wdng 
2-7 inches : it has the same style of coloration, but wdth the “ head and nape dusky cinereous ; back and rump 
greenish olive.” 
Distribution. — This little Wren-Babbler, which is the smallest of the Babbling Thrushes found in Ceylon, 
was discovered by Layard in 1848, and described, loc. cit., by Blyth. It is one of the commonest and most 
widely distributed of our jungle-birds, being found throughout the wdiole island ujt to the jungle-clad summits 
of the peaks of the main range. It is common throughout the Kandyan and southern hills wherever there 
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