OCR Text |
Show 834 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON A NEW CALLENE. [Nov. 14, Museum in Calcutta, resembles rather the colour of Brachypteryx cruralis. The sexes do not appear to differ. In the two specimens sent by Mr. Fairbank the female is a little the paler; but this appears due to the male being in brighter and fresher plumage. Callene albiventris inhabits the thick patches of forest (called Sholas), which are so remarkable a character in the hills of Southern India. It appears to be scarce. The eggs, two of which are sent, are two in number, of an olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 0*92 and 0*63 inch in their greater and less diameters. Mr. Fairbank writes thus : - " The nest I found in a small hole, just big enough for it, in the trunk of a tree a yard above the ground. It was neatly made of moss and fibrous roots. I surprised the female on the nest several times. She laid two eggs in April, and was incubating when I discovered and took them. In June another nest was built in the same hole, and two eggs were laid, and then the bird began to sit The song is sweet and loud (not so loud as that of Merula simillima or Trochalopteron jerdoni) and varied, though it is generally confined to four notes- sol, la, si, do." W e have thus, on the Nilghiri and Pulney hills in Southern India, two representatives of an Eastern Himalayan form, with, like most Eastern Himalayan forms, strong Malayan affinities. This case is the type of many others; and the remarkable peculiarity to which I alluded above is the representation of Himalayan types with Malay affinities, which are wanting throughont the plains of India, in the higher hill-groups of the southern portion of the peninsula and of Ceylon. The fauna of the plains of India has very nearly as marked affinities with that of Africa as with that of Malaynesia, as is shown by the occurrence of antelopes, the nylgai, gazelles, the lion, the hunting- leopard, Felis chaus, F. caracal, hysenas, wolves, foxes, bustards, sand-grouse, &c. & c , not one of which is represented to the eastward, or is found in the hills of Southern India and Ceylon. In those hills, however, are numerous representatives of the Malay fauna of the Himalayas, such as Trochalopteron and Garrulax among the birds, Diplommatina and Alycams among the land-shells; and it is to this representation of Himalayan forms, as I have before pointed out with reference to the land-shells, that I believe the greater portion of the affinity, where such really exists, between the fauna of Ceylon and that of Malaynesia is due. This subject, however, which has not received the attention it deserves, is one to which I hope to recur before long. P.S. Since writing the above I have seen the specimens of the bird referred by Mr. Fairbank to Trochalopteron jerdoni, Blyth, and I am strongly inclined to believe that, although very closely allied to that species, it is a distinguishable race. |