349. Hydrobata sordida, Gould.

P. Z. S., 1859, p. 494.

The Black-bellied Cashmere Dipper.

Descr. - Crown of head, back of neck, throat, and chest, chocolate-brown, lightest  on the throat and breast; back, abdomen, and tail, deep brownish-black, darkest on the abdomen; wings nearly the color of the back.

Length 6  1/4 inches; wing 3 1/4 ; tail 2 ; tarsus 1 7/8-; bill 7/8.

This is apparently the Asiatic representative of the H. melanogastra of Europe,  and, like the last, is from the mountains of Cashmere, where procured also by Dr.  Adams.

Besides the common Dipper of Europe, Hydrobata cinclus, and the melanogaster, of Eastern Europe, there are recorded H. leucogaster, from Western Siberia, and true  Pallasii, from Eastern Siberia; and there are two in the New World, one from the North, and the other, with a white head, from Peru. With Bonaparte, I agree that the remarkable Australian form Grallino comes near this group, and serves to link it with Enicurus of the Motacillidae. It appears to me, also, that Origma of the same region has affinities with this group.