Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/63

Rh Key to the Species.

a. Abdomen, vent, and under tail-coverts white //. azitrca, p. 49. b. Abdomen, vent, and under tail-coverts blue II. tytleri, p. 50.

601. Hypothymis azurea. The Indian BlacTc-naped Flycatcher.

Muscicapa azurea, Bodd. Tabl. PL Evil. p. 41 (1783). Myiagra caerulea ( Vieill.}, Blyth, Cat. p. 204. Myiagra azurea (Bodd.}, Horsf. fy M. Cat. i, p. 138 j Jerd. B. I. i, "p. 450 ; Hume, N. Sf E. p. 198. Hypothymis azurea (Bodd.}, Anders. Yunnan Exped., Aves, p. 055 ; Hume, Cat. no. 290 ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. iv, p. 274 ; Oates, B. B. i, p. 265 ; Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 159 ; Oates in Hume's N. $ E. 2nd ed. ii, p. 27. llypothymis ceylonensis, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. iv, p. 277 (1870); Legge, Birds Ceyl. p. 408 ; pi. xviii.

The Black-nttped Flycatcher, Jerd. ; Kuht l-at-l-ntia, Beng.

Fig. 20. Bill of H. azurea.

Coloration. Male. A patch on the Dape, forehead, angle of the chin, and a crescentic bar across the fore neck black ; abdomen, vent, and under tail-coverts white, or faint bluish white ; re- mainder of lower plumage a/Aire-blue ; wings and coverts dark brown edged with blue; tail brown, suffused with blue on the median pair of feathers and the outer webs of the others ; under wing-coverts and axillaries white.

Female. Head above azure-blue ; sides of the head, chin, and throat duller blue, the ear-coverts almost brown ; breast ashy blue ; abdomen, flanks, and under tail-coverts white tinged with grey ; wings, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts brown ; tail darker brown, the outer edges washed with blue.

I have not been able to examine a nestling of this species.

Iris dark brown ; eyelids plumbeous, the edges blue ; bill dark blue, the edges and tip black : mouth yellow ; legs plumbeous ; claws horn-colour.

Length about 6*5 : tail 3 ; wing 2*8 ; tarsus '7 ; bill from gape 75.

H. ceylonensis, from Ceylon, is said to differ in the male wauling the black bar across the throat, but I am of opinion that this alleged difference does not really hold good. Ceylonese specimens of this Flycatcher are not common in collections, but the British Museum contains six males. Of these, five have no black throat-bar, but they als<> hai> no nape-patch, which shows them to be