A Manual of Philippine Birds

by Richard C. McGregor

Genus ORTHOTOMUS Horsfield, 1821.

Bill long, depressed basally, compressed near the tip, with no notch at tip of mandible; rictal bristles few and moderate in length; no bristles on forehead; chin-feathers without lengthened shafts; wing short, rounded, and curved to the body; first primary less than one-half second, the latter considerably shorter than the fourth; fifth, sixth, and seventh subequal and longest; secondaries but little shorter than primaries; rectrices long, narrow, strongly graduated, and their tips rounded; tarsus about equal to culmen from base; outstretched feet usually reaching to, or beyond, the tip of tail; colors largely green, chestnut, gray, and white; or green, black, and gray or yellow.

Species.

• a¹. Top of head, or the forehead at least, chestnut.
  • b¹. Chin, throat, and ear-coverts white, or gray streaked with white.
    • c¹. Back bright olive-green.
      • d¹. Chestnut of head confined to frontal and circumocular regions, not extending to occiput.
      • d². Chestnut of head covering the entire forehead, crown, and occiput. chloronotus (p. [575])
    • c². Back gray.
      • d¹. Outer webs of rectrices green castaneiceps (p. [574])
      • d². Outer webs of rectrices dull chestnut, gray basally.
  • b². Chin and ear-coverts, as well as forehead and crown, cinnamon-rufous. cineraceous (p. [576])
• a². Top of head smoky gray or black; throat black in the adult.
  • b¹. Thighs green; middle of breast and of abdomen black or smoky gray.
    • c¹. Ear-coverts white forming a conspicuous patch; top of head dark smoky gray cinereiceps (p. [577])
    • c². Ear-coverts black; top of head black; eyebrow and eye-circle white. nigriceps (p. [578])
  • b². Thighs chestnut; entire breast and abdomen bright yellow. samarensis (p. [578])

554. ORTHOTOMUS FRONTALIS Sharpe.

SHARPE’S TAILORBIRD.

• Orthotomus frontalis Sharpe, Ibis (1877), 112, pl. 2, fig. 1; Trans. Linn. Soc. 2d ser. Zool. (1877), 1, 336 (part); Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1883), 7, 220 (part); Hand-List (1903), 4, 192 (part); Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 219 (habits); McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 88 (part).

Bohol (Everett, McGregor); Dinagat (Everett); Leyte (Steere Exp., Whitehead); Mindanao (Steere, Everett, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Goodfellow, Celestino, Clemens, Bartsch); Samar (Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Whitehead).

Adult.—Forehead, lores, and ring around eye rufous-chestnut, sharply defined against the ashy gray crown; ear-coverts, sides of neck, and hind neck ashy gray like the crown; back, rump, tail-coverts, and edges of wing-feathers and of rectrices bright olive-green, the last with a dusky subterminal band; under parts white, more or less streaked with cinereous on throat and breast; sides ashy; flanks and under tail-coverts washed with light yellowish green; thighs chestnut. Length, about 115. A male from northern Mindanao measures: Wing, 44; tail, 35; culmen from base, 15; bill from nostril, 11; tarsus, 19. A female from Bohol, wing, 41; tail, 34; culmen from base, 16; bill from nostril, 11; tarsus, 19.

Specimens in fresh plumage have the occiput more or less washed with green; the dusky spots at end of tail are variable.