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Show 758 THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE O N [NOV. 20, 13. ALCEDO BENGALENSIS (38). [Cebu, male, March.] 14. ENTOMOBIA GULARIS (44). 15. SAUROPATIS CHLORIS (47). [Cebu, male, March. Iris brown, bill black, feet dark brown.] 16. XANTHOL^EMA ROSEA (51). [Cebu, male, April. Iris hazel-brown, bill black, legs and feet coral-red.] Identical with Javan, Sumatran (Lampong), and Negros individuals. Two examples, marked female by Mr. Everett, have many of the throat-feathers yellow, tipped with red. They are probably immature birds. This species is but a developed form of X. heema-cephala, the only distinction between the two being that the yellow eye-patches and the yellow throat of that species are blood-red in X. rosea. Their distribution is curious ; for while X. heemacephala occurs throughout the continent of India and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and on the Philippine island of Luzon, X. rosea is restricted to Java and the two Philippine islands of Negros and Cebu, while Sumatra, again, is inhabited by both species. 17. MACROPTERYX COMATUS (52). [Cebu, female, March.] 18. CENTROCOCCYX VIRIDIS (64). [Cebu, female, April, " pairing." Iris crimson.] 19. LANIUS NASUTUS (70). [Cebu, female, March, " breeding." Iris brown, bill and legs black.] A numerous series of the Philippine black-headed Shrike in full dress, obtained in Cebu by Mr. Everett, together with m y Luzon series, enables me, after comparison made with Lanius nigriceps (as restricted I. ci) of India, to assert the specific identity of the two species. The generality of the Philippine birds have the uropygium of a paler, more tawny ferruginous hue than Bengal (Rognathpoor) and Goomsoor examples; the grey tint descends lower down the back ; and the ferruginous colouring of the flanks and under tail-coverts is of a paler, more dilute, shade. Still one Cebu individual is not to be distinguished from an adult Bengal individual in this or any other respect. Philippine birds exceed somewhat in dimensions. Adult Tonghoo birds belong more nearly to L. tricolor ; but I have not as yet met with either Pegu, Assam, or Darjeeling examples in which the deep uniform ferruginous dorsal colouring of L. tricolor runs up and joins the black of the nape, as in Nipaul individuals. The examples of females marked "breeding" by Mr. Everett have the head and nape dark ashy brown, rather than black. |