ALLOTRIUS MELANOTIS.
Black-eared Allotrius.

Pieruthius melanotis, Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. vol. xvi. p. 448.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. iii.
App. p. t3. App. to p. 270.

 

Numerous as are the collections of birds which have been from time to time forwarded to this country
from our Indian possessions, scarcely any of them have contained examples of this species ; a circumstance
which at once indicates that the bird is an inhabitant of distant and remote countries which have not yet
been explored by the collector, and but rarely visited by travellers; accordingly we find that it is in
Nepaul, Bootan, and other countries lying still farther to the eastward, that the dotrius melanotis finds a
congenial residence.

M. Temminck has characterized and figured in his ‘“ Planches Coloriées,” under the name of Aotrius
enobarbus, a bird very nearly allied to, and which by some writers has been considered identical with, the
present species ; but upon a comparison of examples of the latter with M. Temminck’s Plate, I am induced
to believe that the two birds are specifically distinct. The A/otrius enobarbus is stated to be from Java,
and not from India, which forms an additional reason for considering them not identical, but representatives
of each other in the countries they respectively inhabit.

The Honourable East India Company’s Collection contains examples of, I believe, both sexes of this rare
bird: if this conjecture be correct, the male has the wing-coverts tipped with white, while those of the
female are tipped with reddish buff: these differences will be at once perceived on reference to the accom-
panying Plate, which represents the birds of the natural size.

The male has the crown of the head, all the upper surface and the basal three-fourths of the two central
tail-feathers yellowish olive ; lores, orbits, and a crescentic mark behind the ears black; back of the neck
grey, separated from the black of the orbits by a streak of light grey; wing-coverts black, largely tipped
with white, forming two bands across that portion of the wing; remainder of the wing slaty black, narrowly
edged with grey, and the secondaries margined with white at the tip; throat rich orange-brown, gradually
blending into the orange-yellow of the under surface ; two central tail-feathers tipped with black ; outer
feather on each side white, the remainder of the tail-feathers black, with a large patch of white on the tip
of the inner web of the feather next the outer one, and a smaller spot of white on the same part in
the succeeding one; bill dark slate-colour ; legs and feet flesh-colour.

In the female the colouring is similar, but is of a much paler hue, and the tips of the wing-coverts are buff
instead of white.

The figures are of the size of life.