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Show 1871.] MR. R. S W I N H O E O N T H E BIRDS O F CHINA. 377 allied throng with which they came into contact, and so pass on with it inadvertently. Thus it is matter of no great surprise that the typical L. lucionensis is occasionally obtained, as Mr. Blyth informs me, in Ceylon, whither it would have travelled with L. cristatus, or in the Tenasserim, whither the company of L. superciliosus would have conducted it. To account for this phenomenon I was before led to suppose that the variation of the three species was not constantly fixed, and that each race occasionally developed the peculiarities of either of the others. But my present hypothesis is, I think, the right one. There need be no confusion of races by the intercrossing of species, for the misguided birds would be among strangers only for the winter; in the summer, on their return journey, they would have the opportunity of rejoining their species. Lanius incertus is founded on one male specimen, and, from its being so different in plumage, will, I think, be found to belong to another geographical race, with winter and summer resorts of its own, which has, in a similar way, been allured from its ordinary course of migration. 304. TEPHRODORNIS PELVICA (Hodgs.); Ibis, 1870, p. 241. Tenthuca pelvica, Hodgs. Ind. Rev. 1837, p. 447. Hainan. 305. ARTAMUS FUSCUS (Vieill.); Ibis, 1862, p. 306, 1870, p. 247; P.Z.S. 1863, p. 287. Hainan. Macao (Cassin, v. Perry's Exp. to Japan). 306. DICRURUS CATHCECUS, n. sp. D. macrocercus, Swinh. Ibis, 1860, p. 59, 1861, pp. 43, 340, 1863, p. 266, 1865, p. 348, 1866, p. 121, 1870, p. 244; P.Z.S. 1862, p. 319, 1863, p. 285, 1870, p. 433. The term macrocercus has been applied in India to two distinct species of Black Drongos,-the one a long bird,always distinguishable by a white spot close to the gape, the D. albiridus of Hodgson; and the other allied to our Chinese bird. The name was given by Vieillot to the Java bird of this group-the Edolius longus, Temm., and E. forficatus, Horsf. The Java species is smaller than the Indian bird, of more slender and elongated form, and has smaller feet. Our China bird, which is found throughout China, Hainan, and Formosa, is larger than its Indian ally, with longer bill and much longer wing, and has a rich bronze gloss over its feathers, including its wings and tail; wing 6 inches, tail 6. I propose to separate it specifically under the above name. Our Drongo, in its nestling plumage, is of a greyish black (which browns with wear), deeper on the upper parts, bronzed on its wings and tail, with white on its axillaries and carpal edge. In changing into the bronzed plumage of the adult, the feathers of the underparts appear with broad white margins, which gradually give place to uniform bronze. Young males often begin to acquire the adult plumage on leaving the nest. |