48 Linnaan Society. 



No. 126. The bird here referred to, Oriolus galbula, is, I am now 

 satisfied, the young male O. kundoo, as I have received specimens 

 from Central India precisely similar in colouring which were deci- 

 dedly that species. The Bengal example referred to has imperfect 

 wings and tail, or the dimensions of the former would have proved 

 it to be distinct from O. galbula. It is still the only example of the 

 species which I have met with here, though others have been sent 

 me from Midnapore. In a notice which I gave of the Asiatic spe- 

 cies of this genus in J. A. S. B. two corrections are necessary, the 

 O. acrorhynchus, Vigors, being distinct from 0. chinensis, and the 

 0. castanopterus, nobis, being merely the second plumage of O. leu- 

 cogaster, v. xanthonotus . 



[To be continued.] 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINNJ1AN SOCIETY. 



March 5, 1844.— E. Forster, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



Read a paper " On Spiranthes gemmipara." By Charles Cardale 

 Babington, Esq., M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S. &c. 



Two specimens of this very rare plant were first found by Mr. 

 James Drummond in or about the year 1810, near Castletown, Bear- 

 haven, in the county of Cork, " opposite the western redoubt, grow- 

 ing in a salt-marsh near the shore." One of these was communi- 

 cated to Sir James E. Smith, who published it in his « English Flora ' 

 under the name of Neottia gemmipara, with a description furnished 

 by Mr. Drummond. Within these few years the plant has been again 

 discovered near to, but probably not in exactly the original spot, by 

 Dr. P. A. Armstrong, who on the 30th of September 1843 con- 

 ducted Mr. Babington and Mr. E. Winterbottom to the station, 

 where they saw about twelve specimens, several of which had been 

 destroyed by cattle, and all were in rather an advanced state of 

 flowering. 



From the specimens then collected Mr. Babington gives a detailed 

 description of the plant, which differs in a slight degree from that 

 furnished to Sir J. E. Smith by Mr. Drummond. He thinks it may 

 fairly be referred to the genus Spiranthes, although differing from 

 the other European species in some particulars ; the most remarkable 

 of these differences consisting in the connexion of all the sepals with 



chyurus of Linnaeus (founded on Turdus viridis moluccensis of Brisson),with 

 throat black and lower parts fulvous, from the Moluccas ; 2. the " com- 

 mon Malayan species which has always a black chin " is probably P. cucul- 

 lata, figured in the last Number of the ' Annals ' ; 3. Pitta brachyura of 

 Gould, with a black beak and white throat, from the Himalaya and Bengal, 

 and which wants a specific name ; 4. a species with yellowish beak, white 

 throat, and a white or bluish-white streak over the eye : this is the P. ma- 

 laccensis (Scop.) (superciliari.<i,Wag\.), founded en Sonn. ' Voy. Ind.'pl. 1 10, 

 and is also the abdominalis, Wagl., founded on Edwards, pi. 324. — H. E. S. 



