SIBIA ME LANOLE UCA, Tickeu.
Black-and-White Sibia.

Sibia melanoleuca, Tickell, MSS., undé

Stbia melanoleuca, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xviii, Pp. 413 (1859).—Gray, Handlist of Birds, i. DP: 273,
no. 4002 (1869).—Hume and Davidson, Stray Feathers, 1878, p. 293.

Stbia picata, Tickell, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xxviii. p. 451.— Walden, Ibis, 1866, p. 355.

Malacias melanoleucus, Hume, Stray Feathers, 187 2. Oa.

 

Tus elegant bird was discovered by the late Colonel Tickell on the plateau of Mooleyit, in Tenasserim, at
an altitude of 6600 feet. It was first described by Mr. Blyth in the Asiatic Society’s Journal for 1859 ; and
immediately afterwards Colonel Tickell himself contributed a second description of the same bird under the
name of Sida picata, which of course cannot be allowed to stand. Colonel Tickell Says that “it was
evidently exceedingly rare, or confined to elevated peaks ; a pair only seen, of which the male was secured.
Lively and restless, with a prattling whistle like 8. capistrata. Incessantly hopping and flitting about the
stunted trees found at that altitude (6600 feet).”

Mr. Davison writes :—* This pretty Sibia was common about the higher parts of Mooleyit, especially where
the jungle was open. I found it very partial to the trees about the < Sahans,’ or camping-grounds. — Its
note resembles that of Sida capistrata, and is a single long-drawn clear-sounding whistle, sounding like
‘ whee-e-e e-00,' the ‘whee’ bemg very much prolonged, the ‘oo’ short and abrupt. When I was at
Mooleyit, the birds were breecing, and consequently were always found in pairs. Their food consists quite
as much of small berries as it does of insects, which latter they capture amongst the smaller branches and
the foliage of the tree-tops, in which they are always moving about. They never descend to the ground or
even amongst brushwood. I never saw them sitting sunning themselves on a bare branch, or catching
insects on the wing. They have a habit of rapidly expanding and closing their tail as they move about,
but without erecting it as a Leucocerca does. They are not at all shy birds; and there is not the slightest
difficulty in approaching and shooting them.”

Mr. Hume has added to the above note of Mr. Davison a capital description of the species, which I here-
with copy :—‘* The legs and feet varied from a very dark reddish brown to a dark purplish brown or
brownish black ; bill black; irides lake. The lores, forehead, crown, occiput, nape, cheeks, ear-coverts,
and point of the chin glossy black, with a faint greenish reflection, only the ear-coverts, in some Specimens,
with a slightly browner tinge; the rest of the chin, throat, breast, abdomen, and entire lower parts, including
wing-lining, axillaries, and lower tail-coverts, snowy white, a little pencilled with brownish grey in most
specimens towards the sides of the breast; the entire back, scapulars, and lesser and median wing-coverts a
deep, somewhat chocolate-brown ; rump and upper tail-coverts a dull, somewhat greyer brown; quills and
greater-coverts hair-brown ; the tertiaries and some of the later secondaries, towards their tips, with a more
or less decided chocolate tinge; all the feathers margined on the outer webs with black, which on the quills
has distinct though not conspicuous greenish reflections; tail brown; the central tail-feathers paler, and
with a sort of paler chocolate tinge ; the central pair narrowly, and each succeeding pair (the tail is very
much graduated) more and more broadly tipped with pure white, and all the feathers fringed darker ; in
some almost blackish on their outer webs just towards the base.”

The Plate represents a male and female of the size of life. The figures are drawn from the typical pair
kindly lent me by Captain Wardlaw Ramsay, to whom I beg to tend my warmest acknowledgments,

[R. B. 8.]