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Show 1877.] THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON BATRACHOSTOMUS. 431 Chin and throat-feathers white at their roots, with tawny tips, the produced hair-like shafts being brown, and narrow brown lines crossing some of the feathers. On the centre of the throat and reaching to the breast a patch of white feathers, each with a subterminal, irregular, brown, narrow transverse line, and in some, higher up the feather, a second V-shaped line. The white throat-plumes bordering the upper breast with a broader dark-brown or black terminal band. Separating the group of white throat-plumes from the upper breast is a series of brown feathers freckled with rusty, and all with more or less white along the basal half of the shaft. These are followed by a series of pectoral pure white plumes with either black terminal margins or black margins freckled with pale rusty. Many are traversed with two irregular brown narrow lines. These pectoral plumes are succeeded by pure white abdominal feathers, traversed by two narrow V-shaped pale-brown or tawny-brown lines, the terminal margins being white or fulvous. The flank-feathers have much the same character. The ventral feathers and under tail-coverts are white, some of the latter traversed with dilute brown markings. Rectrices pale grey, tinged tawny and profusely freckled with transverse, minute, irregular lines. Six or seven pale irregularly circumscribed quasi-bands cross the rectrices, but without quite touching the shafts. These bands are minutely dotted with pale brown, and margined above and below with a distinct brown line. Penultimate outer pair broadly indented on both webs with pure white. Shafts above pale ruddy brown, below tawny white. Rectrices below appear pale greyish brown, banded with pallid tawny. Rectrices tipped brown. The long narial bristles are black. The bill is as in the rufous bird. Upper fourth of anterior side of the tarsus is feathered. Wing 4*62, tail 5, tarsus 0*5, middle toe 0*62, bill from forehead 1, width of gape 1*12. No. 5, d" (?) adult, ex Malacca (mus. nostr.). This example closely resembles the one above described, but has the plumage of the head of a darker brown. The whole back with a more decided dark rufous tinge. The pale caudal bands more regular in outline and running right across the feathers, and the darker and broader interspaces more rufous brown. Wing 4*75, tail 5, bill from forehead 0*9, width of gape 118. No. 6, d (?) not quite adult (?), ex Malacca (mus. nostr.). In general tone of colour this example closely resembles No. 4. The auricular plumes are fully developed, and the bill is that of an adult; but the white nuchal collar is only indicated by a few feathers, and might be overlooked. The scapulars exhibit white all over or only on the outer webs; the white on the throat-plumes is more irregularly distributed, while the pure white small spots on the major wing-coverts are more abundant. The rectrices resemble those of No. 2. Wing 4*5, tail 4*62, bill from forehead 0*9, width of gape 1*16. An example (mus. nostr.) marked East Africa (!) only differs from the foregoing by all the quills being indentated on their outer webs with pure rufous without any white. No. 7, d (fide Wardlaw Ramsay) ex Karennee, at 6000 feet eleva- |