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Show 472 MR. R. B, SHARPE ON SYRNIUM MAINGAYI. [May 17, 1876, p. 342 ; Hume & Davison, Str. F. vi. p. 27 (1878); Scully, Str. F. 1879, p. 229; Oates, B. Brit. Burm. ii. p. 164 (1883); Marshall, Ibis, 1884, p. 407. Syrnium hodgsoni, Scully, Str. F. 1879, p. 231. It is most difficult, if not impossible, to state the exact limits of size in the sexes of this species, for carefully-sexed males in the Hume collection measure from 13*7 inches to 15*5 inches, and the females from 15 inches to 16*6 inches. Dr. Scully procured a male (and there is no reason to doubt the determination of this careful observer) with the wing 157- One specimen has the wing 133, aud this would doubtless be a male. On the other hand, a specimen with the sex undetermined has the wing 14*8 inches, and this might be either a very small female (the smallest in the Himalayan series having the wing 15 inches) or an ordinary male. In any case the measurements of the sexes overlap, and large males measure more than small females. To the eastward the species diminishes in size perceptibly, and the colour of the face is more permanently ochreous. The males have the wing 14 inches, and the females 14-14*5, which is a decidedly smaller average than with the series from the Himalayas. In the Nilghiris the measurements are still smaller ; the males have the wing 12*8 inches, and the females 13"0-13*9 inches. The Nuwara-Eliya skins are of about the same dimensions, hut the ochre-faced skin from Kandy has the wing 119. The tendency in eastern birds, first seen to any extent in some Nepal specimens, to be more fulvous underneath, is developed to a greater extent in specimens from Sbillong, all of which are fulvescent below, but no generalization from this fact can be arrived at, as the Bussahir example matches one of the Shillong birds. It can therefore only be said that, as with the case of many other birds, there is a slight tendency to paler coloration in the specimens from the Northwestern Himalayas. Accompanying the ochreous tint on the underparts there is generally a slight increase in the fulvous tinge on the face, which becomes more or less washed with ochreous buff. It never, however, becomes uniform, but is always more or less barred with dusky, showing at the same time a distinct approach to S. indrani. I have below referred to the specimen from Coonoor which has dusky bars on the face, and which it is impossible to divide from $. newarense. The question arises, therefore, whether we are not compelled to recognize the presence of S. newarense in the Nilghiris, if not in Ceylon ; for one of the specimens from Nuwara Eliya has a certain amount of barring on the face. Colonel Legge writes : - " Examples from the upper hills (whether as a rule or not, 1 cannot say) are darker on the disk, ruff, and lores than the low-country birds, and exhibit at the same time the facial barring which Mr. Flume found to he absent in his examination of the specimen on which he founded his Ceylonese race or subspecies S. ochrogenys." With regard to Scully's Syrnium hodgsoni, I must say that I cannot see any character by which the species can be recognized from |
