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as the underside, uniform green or yellowish green, while some of its subspecies 

 have a blue throat, others not. I was therefore not a little surprised when 

 I read the diagnosis of Linnaeus, who, in the first instance, Syst. Nat. ed. x. 1. 

 p. 117 (1758), diagnosed his Mfroj/s n'r/i//s as follows: " M. dorso forrngineo, 

 abdomine absque viridibus, gnla caudanne caeruleis," and stated as its distribution 

 Java and Bengal I Now the little Green Bee-eater has neither a ferrnginous back 

 nor a blue tail, and it has never been found in Java ! Looking up the quotations 

 given b}' Linnaeus, we find as the first author Osbeck, who deseribeil a Java bird, 

 and it is at once obvious that Linnaeus extracted his diagnosis and the locality 

 Java from Osbeck. Of the other three quotations of Linnaeus one refers also to 

 the Java Bee-eater described by Osbeck ; the other two (Albin and Edwards), how- 

 ever, to the little Green Bee-eater of Bengal, thongh shockingly and wrongly 

 coloured. It does not, of course, alter the status of the name iv/vVZ/.s if two quota- 

 tions are erroneously added, as its diagnosis and first " habitat " clearly refer to the 

 bird now known as Merops mimatraii'zs, which must henceforth and for ever boar 

 the name Merops virulis L. 



Of course nowadays we begin with the teath edition of Linnaons (1758), but 

 in the Catalogue of Birds, unfortunately, the twelfth edition alone has — with 

 a few exceptions— been quoted. This might, in the case of the Green Bee-eater, 

 have accounted for the acceptance of the name riridis for the latter. But even 

 there {Si/sf. Xat. ed. xii. 1. p. 182 [17G6]) we do not find a satisfactory diagnosis. 

 To the (jnotations we find added : Merops riridis, supra ferriujinea Amoen 

 acad. 4, p. ~'37, which is again M. suinatraiius ; Brisson's Apiaster bengalensis 

 torijiiafi/s, which is the little Green Bee-eater; and Brisson's Apiaster madagas- 

 carieiisis torqiiatus, which is the same with a wrong locality ! The localities 

 Linnaeus quotes are again Java and Bengal. Now the description of 170G is clearly 

 a mixture of that of the species hitherto called .17. siiinatraims and M. viridis. 

 There is the bine tail of " sumatranus " and the black pectoral band of " viridis,'' 

 and therefore even the name "viridis" of 17G0 could not have been adopted by 

 any one who looked up Osbeck's original description, or duly considered the 

 diagnosis and first locality given by Linnaeus. 



The next name available for the " Green Bee-eater" is Mrrops lamark, and the 

 C'eylonese and Bengal form must be called 



Merops lamark lamai'k. 



Not beautiful, perhaps, but logical and inevitable ! 



