1)7 
Mr. R. B. Sharpe’s Catalogue 0 /Acaipitres. 
females from 19*5 to nearly 21; while in the present species 
they vary in the males from 17 to barely 18 inches^ and in 
the females from 18 to 18’5 inches/^* 
With reference to the above passage^ I may remark that 
the preceding pages contain the measurements of one spe¬ 
cimen from North-west India^ one from Darjeeling^ and 
two from Nepal (all adult or very nearly so^ and, from their 
localities, presumably referable to S. unduiatus), in which 
the measurements of the wing fall short of the minimum 
assigned by Mr. Hume to the larger race,—and also of two 
Bengal specimens (viz. that from Moorshedabad, which is a 
fully adult bird, and that from Bugola), as well as of Dr. 
Jerdon^s type of S. melanotis, from the foot of the Neilgher- 
ries, which seems not to have been fully adult—in all three 
of which the measurement of the wing is less than Mr. Hume^s 
minimum for the smaller race^ as given in the above passage j 
but subsequently Mr. Hume writes, In rutherfordi the wing 
varies from 16*25 to 17*75 ^’f. On the whole, I am disposed 
to think that S. rutherfordi of Hainan may be considered 
to be specifically identical with birds of similar size which 
occur in some parts of Burmah, and probably also with the 
race inhabiting Central India, and perhaps to be separable, 
as a subspecies, from the larger S. unduiatus, though neither 
the structural nor the geographical limits of demarcation 
between the two appear to admit of very precise definition. 
The measurements of Dr. Jerdon^s type specimen of S. me¬ 
lanotis, from the foot of the Neilgherries, seem to indicate 
that a third and still smaller race may occur in some parts of 
Southern India, and may perhaps prove identical with that 
inhabiting Ceylon, for which the late Mr. Blyth proposed the 
specific name spilogaster. 
I have examined fifteen specimens of Spilornis from Ceylon, 
in which the measurement of the wing ranged from 15*1 
inches to 16*5, that of the tarsus from 3*1 to 3*6, and of the 
middle toe s. u. from 1*7 to 2*1; besides these I have seen 
one in the British Museum from Newara EUia, in Ceylon, 
* Cf. ^ Stray Feathers ’ for 1876, p. 358. 
t Vide ‘ Stray Feathers ’ for 1874, p. 147. 
SER. IV.-VOL. II. 
H 
