DEYMCECA INSFLAEIS. 
(THE WHITE-BROWED WREN- WARBLER.) 
(Peculiar to Ceylon ?) 
Lrymceca inornata, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 142, spec. F (1849) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. 
Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 263 ; Layard & Kelaart, Cat. B. App. Prodromns, p. 57 (1853). 
Brymoipus inornatus, Legge, J. A. S. (Ceyl. Br.), 1870-71, p. 50 ; Holdsw. P. Z, S. 1872, 
p. 456 ; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 439; Legge, Ibis, 1875, p. 396. 
The Plain-Warhler, Grass-hird, Europeans in Ceylon. 
Adult male and female. Length 4-9 to 5-4 inches ; wing 1-85 to 2-15 ; tail 2-1 to 2-5 ; tarsus 0-8 to 0-9 ; hind toe and 
claw 0-58 to 0-61 ; bill to gape 0‘6o to 0‘68. 
Iris very pale reddish or reddish yellow, a dark, thin, outer ring generally visible ; eyelid reddish ; bill black, with a 
clearly-defined white base ; legs and feet flesh-colour or fleshy grey, claws dark brown. 
Above dull cinereous or greyish brown, pale on the rump and tinged with chestnut on the head ; wings and tail brown, 
edged with riifescent greyish ; centre rectrices with faint cross rays ; tips of rectrices white, with an adjacent 
blackish spot, both showing most beneath and least defined on the centre pair ; a conspicuous white supercilium 
spreading oa er the lores, except at the coimer of the eye, which is brown ; orbital fringe whitish, with the posterior 
corner rufesceiit brown ; beneath white, tinged with buff, most strongly on the sides of the chest and belly ; flanks 
slightly dusky ; under wing and under tail-coverts buffy white ; thighs fulvous-brown. 
I do not observe any constant difference in the plumage of adults in the winter. Some specimens are certainly darker 
in the cool season than the generality of breeding birds ; but I have an example, shot from the nest in July, quite 
as dark as one killed at the latter end of October. The tail is, if any thing, shorter in winter than in summer. 
Young. Iris greyish ; bill, upper mandible brown, lower fleshy, with a dusky tip ; legs and feet pinkish flesh-colour. 
Upper surface rufescent brown ; the wings broadly margined with brownish rufous ; tail tipped fulvous, with a trace 
of the subterminal bar ; supercilium narrow aud biiff-white, under surface more washed with fulvous buff than 
the adidt. 
Ihe tail is even in the nestling, the lateral feathers being nearly as long as the centre pair. 
Ohs. This Wren- Warbler has hitherto been united with the Lidian species, Drymoi'pus inornatus, Sykes, to w'hich it 
is, indeed, very closely allied. I will, however, keep it distinct, on account of its shorter tail, generally smaller 
size, and darker summer plumage, which differences, I find, exist between it and the type of the above-mentioned 
species, w hich is jmeserved in the Lidia Museum. Mr. Brooks has lately compared this specimen, which is from 
the Deccan, with others of the northern race, which he aud Mr. Hume have recently*demoustrated to possess a 
distinct summer and winter plumage, and he finds that it is identical with them. In his notice on this subject 
( Stray leathers, 1876, dO”), Mr. Hume contrasts the winter phase {D. longicaudatus, Tickell) with the 
summer (1). terricolor, Hume) as follows : — 
Drynioipus inornatus. Winter, longieaudatus : lower surface w'arm buff ; upper surface strongly rufescent ; wings 
hair-browm, strongly margined with dull ferruginous ; tail 3'2 inches, rufescent brown. Summer, terricolor : lower 
surface white, with a faint yellowish tinge ; upper surface dull earthy grey-brown ; wings earthy brown, mar- 
gined albescent ; tail 2-5, central feathers pale earthy brown.” 
Now although, as I have above remarked, some winter specimens of our bird are darker than some summer ones, no such 
thorough change or increased length of tail takes place as I have just quoted ; and as Mr. Brooks says (‘ Str. Death.’ 
1876, p. 274) that Sykes’s type of Brymoijms inornatus is in the longieaudatus or dark winter plumage of terrkolor, 
it follovvs that it must be a different bird from ours. Touching Mr. Brooks’s decision, how'ever, I W'ould remark 
that Mr. Moore and myself have compared a pale sinnmer-plumaged Ceylon specimen with Sykes’s type, and find 
that the latter is the paler of the tw-o, so that it cannot well be as dark as the above diagnosis of Mr. Hume, and 
likewise former writings of Mr. Brooks’s on the subject, would lead one to suppose B. longieaudatus really is. 
Furthermore it would be necessary to possess summer specimens of the Deccan bird (there is no date of 
procuring on Sykes’s specimen) before a decided opinion could be pronounced whether it wms identical with the 
northern form. But whether Mr. Brooks be right or not, Sykes’s bird docs not agree well with ours ; for besides 
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