Genus ACRIDOTHEEES. 
Bill stout, rather straight, the tip notched and the gape strongly angulated ; nostrils placed 
in a depression, the frontal feathers concealing them. Wings long and pointed ; the 1st quill 
less than the primary-coverts, the 3rd the longest, and the 2nd longer than the 5th. Legs and 
feet very strong. The tarsus longer than the middle toe and its claw, covered in front with four 
stout scales ; toes strongly scaled, the outer syndactyle and longer than the inner, and both 
considerably shorter than the middle ; hind toe and claw very large. 
Orbital region nude ; head crested, the feathers narrow and much attenuated. 
ACEIDOTHEEES MEL ANOSTEEAUS. 
(THE CEYLONESE MYNA.) 
(Peculiar to Ceylon.) 
Acridotheres tristis, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 108, spec. E, F, ex Ceylon (1849) ; 
Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 125 (1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Flist. 1854, xiii. 
p. 218; Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. ii. p. 532 (1856) (in part); Jerdon, 
B. of Ind. ii. p. 325 (1863) (in part); Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 462; Hume, Str. 
Feath. 1873, p. 440 ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 23. 
Acridotheres melanosternus, Legge, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1879, iii. p. 168. 
The Paradise GracTde (Kelaart) ; Martintro, Portuguese in Ceylon ; Field-Myna of 
Europeans. Na-canam patchy, Tamils, apud Layard. 
Gon Tcawada, Gon Tcowdichya, Sinhalese. 
Ad. similis A. tristi, seel ubique saturatior, et gutturis nigredine magis extensa et per pectus medium deducta. 
Adult male and female. Length 9'2 to 10-75 inches ; wing 5-4 to 5-8 ; tail 3-2 to 3-4 ; tarsus 1-5 to 1-7 ; middle toe 
and claw 1-45 ; bill to gape 1-3 to 1-38. 
Iris variable, pink-brown and pinkish grey in some, in others whitish mottled with line specks of dark colour ; bill 
yellow, blackish at the sides near base of lower mandible ; legs and feet sickly yellow ; orbital skin yeUow, this 
extends round the eye, but, being very narrow above, is hidden by the superciliary feathers. 
Head, nape, upper part of hind neck, chin, and throat black, the feathers of the head and nape long, narrow, and 
lanceolate, forming a crest ; hind neck, back, scapulars, tertials, wing-coverts, sides of the chest, and the flanks 
buff-brown, with the black of the chest descending in a stripe down the centre of the h'east, blending into the 
adjacent colour and passing round above the abdomen, which, with the vent and under tail-coverts, are white ; 
quills, the primary-coverts partially, and the tail brow-n-blaok ; the bases of the pi-imaries, the outer webs of some 
of the primary-coverts and the inner webs of others, the edge of the wing, and the under wing-coverts white, as 
are also the tips of all but the centre tail-feathers, decreasing towards the centre; thigh-coverts blackish brown. 
The tail in this species becomes remarkably abraded, the wiiite tips sometimes entirely disappearing. 
Young. Eufous above, deepening into blackish brown on the occiput and head, with wiiich the face, chin, and throat 
are eoncolorous ; feathers of the head not elongated ; wings and tail paler browm than in the adult ; sides of the 
chest and breast light russet-browm ; dowm the centre of the breast the feathers are blackish slate (that is, not so 
dark as in the adult), and the white of the abdomen advances further up and is not bordered with blackish ; the 
feathers of the neck and back have faint tippings of rufous-grey, more pronounced in some than in others. 
