Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
205 
quills hair-brown, with their outer edges olive-brown. Length 
8 inches, wing 3*5, tail 3’7, tarsus 1*3, culmen 0'8. 
Merula erythrotis, sp. IlOV. 
Similar to M. simillima, Jerd., but with the feathers at 
base of upper and lower mandibles, lores, cheeks, and ear- 
coverts russet-brown; small triangular patch behind the 
eye naked and coloured yellow. 
The two specimens are both apparently females, agreeing 
exactly in colour, except for the differences noticed above, 
with adult females of M. simillima, with which I have 
compared them. 
One specimen is slightly immature, a few of the wing- 
coverts showing small triangular buffy patches at their tips ; 
in this specimen the feathers in the angle of the gonys and 
a few feathers on the lower throat are tinged with russet- 
brown. 
The skins measure :—Length 9 # 4, 9’6 inches; wing 4‘8, 
4*9; tail4’2 ; tarsus 1*2; culmen 0*9. 
The naked patch behind the eye, which is very distinct in 
both specimens, renders this species conspicuously different 
from all the other Blackbirds of Southern India. 
I have to thank Mr. Harold Ferguson for allowing me to 
bring the specimens away with me to describe. 
I am. 
Yours &c. 
\Ym. Davison. 
University Museum of Zoology 
and Comparative Anatomy, 
Cambridge, February 1886. 
Sirs, —Being engaged on the continuation of Bronn’s 
‘ Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-reichs, Bd. vi. Abth. iv. 
Vogel/ which is to contain a general exhaustive account of 
the anatomy of birds, and a systematic arrangement to be 
based upon a summary of their structure, I feel the want of 
various important forms, some of which hitherto it has not 
been my good fortune to examine. I hope, therefore, that 
