Motacilla calliope Pallas, Reise Russ. Reichs (1776), 3, 697.
Erithacus calliope Seebohm, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1881), 5, 305.
Calliope camtschatkensis Oates, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1890), 2,
102, fig. 29 (head); Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 214 (habits).
Calliope calliope Sharpe, Hand-List (1903), 4, 155; Oates and
Reid, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1905), 4, 149; McGregor and Worcester,
Hand-List (1900), 85.
Pi-lóy, Manila.
Calayan (McGregor); Luzon (Everett, Whitehead, McGregor);
Masbate (Bourns & Worcester); Mindoro (Whitehead); Negros
(Whitehead). Siberia and northern China; in winter to southern
China, Burmese Provinces, northern and central India; accidental
in Europe.
Male.--Above olive-brown, at times more or less ashy; line over lores
and over eye white; lores and line under eye black, below this a
broader white line; base of jaw black; chin and throat-patch bright
strawberry-red surrounded by a narrow line of black; chest ashy gray;
middle of breast and abdomen white; sides of abdomen and flanks light
buff-brown; tail-coverts white, washed with buff. Iris brown; bill
dusky brown, nearly black with its base whitish; legs and nails dark
flesh-color. Length, about 160 mm. A male from Calayan measures:
Wing, 80; tail, 64; culmen from base, 15; bill from nostril, 9;
tarsus, 30; middle toe with claw, 24.
Female.--Differs from the male in having black lines on sides of
head and throat replaced by brown; loral feathers with brown tips;
throat-patch white; no ashy gray on breast. A female from Calayan
measures: Wing, 78; tail, 63; culmen from base, 15; bill from nostril,
10; tarsus, 29.
"Birds of the year have the brown of both the upper and under parts
more ochraceous, and the male resembles the female, except in having
traces of red on the throat. Young in first plumage appear to be
unknown." (Seebohm.)
Genus COPSYCHUS Wagler, 1827.
Bill moderately stout, when measured from nostril less than hind toe
with claw; rictal bristles small; wing pointed, slightly concave,
and less than tail in length; first primary more than one-half the
second, and much longer than tarsus; rectrices long, narrow, and
strongly graduated; outstretched feet not reaching tips of shortest
pair of rectrices. Colors black and white, the tail entirely black
in the only Philippine species. Sexes somewhat unlike in colors.