PEINIA SOCIALIS. 
(THE ASHY WREN- WARBLER.) 
Prinia socialis, Sykes, P. Z. S. 1832, p. 89 ; Jerdon, Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Journ. 1839, xi. 
p. 3 ; Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 143 (1849) ; Layard & Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. 
App. p. 67 (1853) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 263 ; Horsf. & Moore, 
Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. i. p. 321 (1854); Jerdon, B. of Ind. ii. p. 170(1863); Holdsw. 
P. Z. S. 1872, p. 455 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, ii. p. 337 (1874) ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 21, 
et 1875, p. 397 ; Hume & Butler, Str. Feath. 1875, p. 479 ; Morgan, Ibis, 1875, p. 321 ; 
Fairbank, Str. Feath. 1877, p. 406; Davidson & Wender, ibid. 1878, p. 83. 
Foodkey Warbler, Latham, Hist. viii. p. 125. 
Pliidki, Hind. (Blyth). 
Adult male and female. Length 4-5 to 5'0 inches ; wing l-7o to 1-9 ; tail 1-8 to 1'9 ; tarsus 0-75 to 0-8o ; middle toe 
and claw 0-55 to 0'6 ; bill to gape 0-65. Eemales are smaller, as a rule, than males. 
Note. This species has 10 tail-feathers. 
Iris pale red or brownish yellow ; bill black ; legs and feet fleshy reddish, claws dusky. 
Male. Head, back, and wing-coverts dark bluish ashy, the colour just encircling the eye and covering the upper half of 
the ear-coverts ; two long hairs spring from the nape on each side ; wings and tail umher-hrown ; the tail with whitish 
tips and a subterminal blackish-brown bar, the central pair of feathers less lightly tipped than the rest, and all 
the bars showing darker beneath ; under surface rufescent buff, paling to whitish on the centre of the breast, and 
tinged most deeply on the flanks with the rufescent hue ; thighs brownish rufous ; under wing rufescent. The 
plumage of the under surface is silky. 
Female. Has a buff and more or less conspicuous stripe above the lores ; under surface not so deeply tinged with buff 
as in the male. 
Young. Similar to the adult, with the exception of the less pronounced hues of the upper surface, and more albescent 
character of the lower parts. 
Ohs. Eor want of South-Indian specimens to compare with those in my possession from Ceylon, I am at present, I 
regret to say, unable to deal satisfactorily with this species. I believe it will have to be separated as a smaller 
browner race of P. socialis ; and I hope to refer to it again in the Appendix. It may turn out to be one of those 
forms which undergo a gradual change of plumage and size as they range south towards Ceylou, making it 
difficult to define their limits as distinct birds from their northern representatives ; but even then I should almost 
doubt the propriety of not separating the Ceylon race as a subspecies. Sykes’s male type of P. socialis, which was 
described from the Deccan, and is now in the India Museum, has the lower part of the back ashy, like the upper 
part, as in Ceylou birds ; but the wings and tail are a decided brownish rufous, and consequently much redder than 
in the insular bird ; the tail measures 2-2 and the wing 2-1 inches : another example (labelled $ ) has the wing 
1-85 and the tail 2-3. There is a third example, from the Deccan (but not one of the types), which is similar to 
the above in coloration, and measures 2T inches in the wing and 2'4 iu the tail. These Deccan specimens are 
nearer to our birds than those from more northern parts ; but it will be seen at once how much the tail, in parti- 
cular, exceeds that of the Ceylon birds ; and the dark caudal bands are not so broad as in the latter. Travelling 
northwards we find some examples have the rump ashy, Hite the back, but with much longer tails than those from 
Ceylon, and others with the rump brownish rufous, running so much into P. stewarti (which species has the back 
overcast with an olivaceous hue, becoming quite rufous on the rump and upper tail-covorl s) that I do not wonder 
that Mr. Hume considers the two species doubtfully distinct. A Sikhim example collected by Anderson, and 
labelled P. socialis, has the back similar to Sykes’s specimens, and the wings and tail rufous-brown, somewhat 
approaching in colour those of Ceylonese birds; but the secondaries are edged with brighter rufous-brown, and the 
