Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/114

100 It is seldom that the male is in the full plumage described above. The amount of blue and chestnut on the throat varies much; and sometimes only the presence of a few blue feathers serves to indicate that the bird is a male.

The nestling is blackish above streaked with fulvous, and fulvous below, each feather edged with black.

Bill black, the base flesh-colour ; iris brown ; eyelids plumbeous; inside of mouth yellowish ; legs dusky fleshy ; claws brown.

Length 5-9 ; tail 2'3 ; wing 2-9 ; tarsus Ivl ; bill from gape '75.

Distribution. A winter visitor to almost every portion of the Empire and Ceylon. The only parts from which this species has not yet been recorded are the Nicobar Islands and the portion of Tenasserim south of Tavoy, but even in these it probably occurs.

In summer this species is found immediately north of the Himalayas and thence through Asia to the Arctic Circle, extending west throughout Europe and east to the Pacific. In winter it is found not only in India but in North Africa on the one hand and in Southern China on the other.

Motacilla suecica, Linn. Si/st. Nat. i, p. 336, part. (1766). Sylvia cyanecula, Wolf, Taschenb. , p. 240 (1810). Sylvia wolfii, Brehm^Beitr. zur Vogelk. ii, p. 173 (1822). Cyanecula leucocyana, Brehm, Voy. Deutschl. p. 353 (1831). Cyanecula wolfii (.Brehm) t Hume, S. F. vii, p. 391 ; id. Cat. no. 514 bis. Cyanecula leucocyanea, Brehm, Biddulph, Ibis, 1881, p. 65 ; Scully, Ibis, 1881, p. 447 ; Biddulph, Ibis, 1882, p. 278. Erithacus cyaneculus (Wolf), Seebohm, Cat. B. M. v, p. 311.

Coloration, liesembles C. suecica, the male differing from the male of that species in having the patch on the throat white instead of chestnut, or in wanting a spot altogether. The females and young of the two species appear to be inseparable.

Distribution. A rare visitor to the extreme north of Kashmir, occasionally straggling even to the plains. Biddulph secured a specimen in Grilgit in April, and he records this species as very common on both sides of the Digar pass, between the Nubra and Indus valleys. In the Hume Collection there is a specimen which was obtained in Tirhoot in April, and Hume states that he has seen some half-dozen specimens from various parts of India.

The headquarters of this Blue-throat are Europe in the summer, and North Africa and Palestine in the winter. The genus Daulias contains the Nightingales, birds of plain plumage but of great powers of song. The one species that has been known to occur in India is of extreme rarity in that country, only two instances of its occurrence being known.

In Daulias the whole plumage is brown, somewhat ruddy on the