Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/67

Rh The young resemble the adult, but the back and wing-coverts are margined with rufous.

Bill, legs, and feet black ; iris brown.

Lengt h about 7 ; tail 3-7 ; wing 3-2 ; tarsus *8 ; bill from gape -7.

Birds of this species from Burma are characterized by a nearly total absence of white spots on the wing-coverts and by the presence of more white on the chin and throat ; to this race Hume has given the name of burmanica. I do not propose to keep it distinct, as the specimens of this species in the British Museum from Burma are very few, and the characters pointed out above may prove to be accidental or variable.

Distribution. The whole Empire, ascending the Himalayas to 4000 or 5000 feet. This species is apparently rare from Assam down to Tenasserim, but is found in suitable localities all over the tract. It occurs in Ceylon, but not, so far as is known, in the Andamans and Nicobars.

Habits, tyc. Breeds from February to August, having two or more broods. The nest, composed of fine grass and coated with cobwebs, is generally placed on a stout branch of a tree, or some- times in a fork, and is cup-shaped. The eggs, usually three in number, are white or cream-coloured, marked with greyish brown, and measure about *G6 by '51.

605. Rhipidura albicollis. The White-throated Fantail Flycatcher.

Platyrhynchus albicollis, Vie-ill. Nmiv. Diet. it Hist. Nat. xxvii, p. 13

Rhipidura fuscoventris, Frankl. P.Z.S. 1831, p. 117; Horsf. $ M. Cat. i, p. 144.

Leucocerca fuscoventris (Frankl.}, Blyth, Cat. p. 206 ; Jerd. B. I. i, p. 451 ; Hume, N. $ E. p. 200.

Rhipidura albicollis ( Vicill.), Anders. Yunnan Exped., Aves, p. ('>">< ; Shftrpe, Cat. B. M. iv, p. 317; Oates, B. B. i, p. 266 ; iff. in Humes N. 8f E. 2nd ed. ii, p. 35.

Leucocerca albicollis (Vieill.), Ball, S. F. vii, p. 211; Huine, Cat, no. 291 ; Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 160 ; Hume, S. F. xi, p. 104.

The White-throated Fantail, Jerd. ; Chok-dayal, Beng. ; C/iak-dil, in the N.W. Provinces ; Natn-dit-nom, Lepch.

Coloration. Crown, lores, sides of the head, and angle of the chin black; a short supercilium white; throat white, extending laterally to the sides of the neck, the bases of the feathers black, causing the white to appear dull; with these exceptions the whole plimmge is dark sooty brown ; tail dark brown, all but the middle pair of feathers broadly tipped with white. The female does not differ from the male.

The young have the back and wing-coverts tipped with rufous, the lower plumage fringed ith rufous, and the white supoc- ciliuin and white on the throat barely indicated.