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UROCICHLA LONGICAUDATA.

Long-tailed Hill-Wren.

Pnoepyga longicaudata, Moore, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854, p. 74.—Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. East-India Co. Mus. i.
p. 398 (1854).—Jerd. Birds of India, i. p. 490 (1862).—Gray, Hand-list of Birds, i. p. 188, no. 2561
(1869).—Jerd. Ibis, 1872, p. 130.—Hume, Stray Feathers, 1879, p. 93.

—— chocolatina, Godwin-Austen & Walden, Ibis, 1875, p. 252.—Hume, Stray Feathers, 1876, p. 218;
1878, p. 235; 1879, p. 93.

— caudata (lapsu), Godwin-Austen in Jerd. Birds of India, 2nd ed. p. Ixxvili (1877).

Urocichla longicaudata, Sharpe, Brit. Mus. Cat. of Birds, vol. vi. p. 263 (1881).

 

Tue original specimen of this interesting little species was obtained by the late Dr. Samuel Griffith during
one of his natural-history expeditions in the East. It passed into the Museum of the East-India Company,
and was then described, from ‘North India,” by Mr. F. Moore. In the Catalogue of the East-India
Company’s Museum, the home of this species was given as “ Afghanistan,” along with several other birds
whose habitat should have been the Khasia hills. The mistake is well explained by the late Mr. Blyth,
who writes as follows in ‘The Ibis’ for 1872 (p. 89) :—‘ The late distinguished botanist, Samuel Griffith,
as is well known, made zoological collections in Sindh and Afghanistan, and afterwards in the Khasia hills ;
and those collections having got mixed up, not a few of the Khasia species are erroneously set down as
having been obtained in Afghanistan in the Catalogues of the specimens of Mammalia and Birds contained
in the London East-India Museum, prepared by Messrs. Horsfield and Moore.”

Nothing is known of the habits of this little Hill-Wren; but they doubtless assimilate closely to those
of Pnoepyga, which Urocichla much resembles in style of plumage. Mr. Sharpe bas referred the P.
chocolatina of Colonel Godwin-Austen and Lord Walden to this species, having examined a specimen in
the collection of the former gentleman. He has now examined a further series in Colonel Godwin-
Austen’s cabinet, and believes that P. chocolatina is the young bird, or at least one of the phases of plumage
of P. longicaudata.

As a as we know at present, the Long-tailed Hill-Wren is an inhabitant of the Khasia and Munipur
hills only. On the stand on which the type specimen was mounted, Mr. Sharpe found the locality
entered as Darjiling ; but there can be no doubt, as pointed out above, that it was procured by Griffith
in the Khasia hills, where it would appear to be tolerably abundant.

The following description of the type specimen was given by Mr. Bowdler Sharpe in his recently
published sixth volume of the ‘ Catalogue of Birds :’— ;

« fdult, General colour above dark olive-brown, all the feathers edged with dusky brown, producing a some-
what scaly appearance everywhere, except those on the lower back, rump, and the upper tall covets, which
are uniform; lesser and median wing-coverts like the back, the greater series and the qpuits rather more
tail-feathers dull reddish brown ; lores dusky ; cheeks and ear-coverts uniform dark olive-
light ochraceous buff, the flanks olive-brown ; the sides of the upper breast
, and more or less distinct whitish shaft-streaks ; chin

reddish brown 5
brown ; under surface of body
slightly mottled with dusky brown tips to the feathers
slightly whiter than the throat and the breast, with a fe
er ddish buff than the rest of the under surface; under wing-coverts like the breast,

coverts rather more re¢ an ho
O a } “OW » arrow dee i ash alone the inner web.
the edge of the wing brown ; quills sepia-brown below, narrowly edged with ashy along

. = is Pa,
Total length 4°5 inches, culmen 0°5, wing 1°99, tail 1:95, tarsus 0°85. a |
ird 1 y siti “the size - they are drawn from
The ficures in the Plate represent an adult bird in two positions, of the size of life; they < ¢
fo)

a skin lent to me by Colonel Godwin-Austen.

w white feathers in the centre ; vent aud under tail-

[R. B. S.J