Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/83

Rh

Description. Similar to the last but much darker both above and below, the colour of the head and back blending with one another, the red of the back dull and brownish.

Measurements. Wing 137 to 151 mm.; tail 195 to 241 mm.

Distribution. The whole of Burma south of the Chin and Kachin Hills down to N. Tenasserim and east into Yunnan, Shan States and West Siam.

Nidification. Similar to that of D. rufa rufa.

Habits. The Burmese Tree-pie, though equally tame and confiding in its ways, is not so exclusively confined to open country in civilization as is the Indian Tree-pie and it may also be found in thin forest and the more open parts of evergreen forest.

Type. ♀, No. 87—11. 20. 213 Brit. Mus. Coll. Toungoo.


 * Dendrocitta vagabunda saturutior Ticehurst, Bull. B. O. C, xlii, p. 56 (1922) (Kaukareyet, Amherst).

Description. Similar to that of the Burmese Tree-pie but still darker and browner, the back having the red hardly visible at all.

Colours of soft parts and Measurements as in the Burmese race.

Distribution. Peninsular Siam and Burma but how far its limits extend cannot at present be defined.

Nidification and Habits. Nothing recorded.


 * Dendrocitta leucogastra Gould, P. Z, S., 1833, p. 57 (Malabar Coast); Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 31.

Vernacular names. Neela val Kaka (Tel.).

Description. Forehead, anterior half of crown, sides of the head, chin, throat, upper breast and thighs black; posterior crown to hind neck, lower breast to vent and upper tail-coverts white; back, scapulars and rump chestnut-bay; under tail-coverts chestnut; wings black, the primaries with a large patch of white at their base; central tail-feathers grey, broadly tipped black; the next pair half grey and half black and the others nearly entirely black.