Stray Feathers - A Journal of Ornithology for India and its Dependencies November 1880

Under the first head the distribution of the species in the Island of. Ceylon is naturally first considered. and explained in 31240 NOTE ON TRIBURA MANDELLIL great detail; then where the bird is not peculiar to Ceylon its distribution in the rest of the British Asian Empire is dealt witir ; and lastly all other parts of the world to which it is known to extend are noticed. [...] Not th least useful or interesting part of the work is the introduction in which in very brief compass Captain Legge has succeeded in conveying a most excellent idea of the physical geography climate and seasons of the island of the affinities of its orms and of the several great classes into which these naturally divide themselves to the local observer. [...] In the present adult male specimen the entire breast and upper abdomen are spotless and there are only a few small oval brown spots on the lower abdomen ; the entire chestnut of the back is uniform and unspotted only the one longest scapular on each side is broadly blue grey at the tip and the next longest scapular has a small blue oval subterminal spot and the next has the shaft just percep [...] Both species have the same more or less mottled white bar on the lower surface of the basal half of the tail feathers and the plumage appears to be identical except that this particular specimen of humilis has the ear-coverts a pale fawny brown contrasting markedly with the grey brown of the rest of the side of the head—a feature which I do not observe in specimens of pluavbetu and which is [...] The white of the face chin throat breast and forehead of the female purer than in the male as is also the red of the cap which is a richer and purer chesnut than in the male; otherwise the plumage is identical.