Salicaria turdina orientalis Temminck and Schlegel, Fauna Japonica,
Aves (1850), 50.
Acrocephalus orientalis Seebohm, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1881),
5, 97; Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 210 (migration); Sharpe, Hand-List
(1903), 4, 187; Oates and Reid, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1905), 4, 183;
McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 87.
Batan (McGregor); Bohol (McGregor); Calayan (McGregor); Cebu
(Meyer, Steere Exp., McGregor); Luzon (Meyer, Whitehead, McGregor);
Mindanao (Steere Exp., Goodfellow); Mindoro (Bourns & Worcester,
McGregor); Palawan (Platen). Japan, northern China, and eastern
Siberia; in winter to Burmese provinces and the Malay Archipelago.
Adult male and female.--Above nearly uniform olive-brown; feathers of
back, tail-coverts, and wing-coverts somewhat fringed with ocherous
buff; primaries, secondaries, and rectrices dark brown, edged with
olive-brown; second primary with a whitish outer web; below white,
washed with buff; chin and throat nearly pure white; breast pale buff;
sides, flanks, thighs, and crissum considerably darker; lores and
spot behind eye brown; eyelids pale buff; a line from nostril over
lores and eye to occiput pale buff; feathers of lores and jaws with
produced black shaft-tips. The obscure dusky streak on throat and the
pale tips to the rectrices, frequently seen in Philippine specimens,
are said to be characteristic of birds of the year. Length, about
190. A male in fresh plumage from Calayan measures: Wing, 85; tail, 77;
culmen from base, 19; bill from nostril, 13; tarsus, 26. A female from
Calayan, wing, 80; tail, 68; culmen from base, 18; bill from nostril,
13; tarsus, 24.
This species is resident in Bohol and specimens from that island are
smaller than those taken in Calayan and in Luzon during migration.
Genus TRIBURA Hodgson, 1845.
"Bill to gape equal to head or less, straight, cylindric, compressed;
at base higher than broad, and having the ridge raised and keeled
between the oval apert nares; tip of upper mandible scarcely inclined
but distinctly notched; rictus smooth; wings short and feeble but not
much or equally gradated; first two quills conspicuously gradated,
three next subequal and longest; tail more or less elongated and
gradated throughout, rather cuneate than fan-shaped and somewhat rigid
or worn; tarsi stout, smooth, longer than the mid toe and nail; toes
and nails simple, compressed, inner fore with its nail exceeding the
outer fore, central elongate, hind least; nails acute." (Hodgson.)