( 555 ) 



throat ligbt orange, white towards the chin, and the red replaced by a deep orange ; 

 featliers in middle of lower abdomen white. Wing 80 mm., tail 89, bill from forehead 

 15, tarsns 14J. It is sexed " ? " by Mr. Butler, whose sex-notes are generally very 

 reliable. I think this must be thojl'tiiale of 



Pericrocotus croceus Sharpe, P.Z.S. 1888. p. 209, 



described from Perak. This, from an adnlt S, is described by Sharpe as similar to 

 P. wrayi, but the red parts being golden yellow, the throat black like the cheeks 

 and sides of face. Dr. Sharjie felt " grave doubts " whether liis bird was anything 

 more tlian a yellow variety of 7'. wrai/i. Onr bird from the (lunong Ijau, however, 

 has a yellow throat, a deep orange lower back, rniuj) and n[)per tail-coverts, and is 

 deep steel-black on head, back and wings ; ear-coverts and line under eye grey. 



104. Pericrocotus speciosus fraterculus Swinh. (an potins snbsp. nov. ?) 



[Tui-dus speciosus. Latham, Iiti/. Or/i. i. (1790) p. W-i (ex " Black and Scarlet 

 Tlirnsh," Gen. Sijn. Snpjil. p. 14. India, Lady Impey. We may safely accept 

 ^'■Himalayas" as the original locality for " Turi/im speciosus,''' as Lady Impey 

 received her birds from there — cf. Lophophorus impeyanm — while Assam and 

 Cachar birds were unknown at that time).] 



Pericrocotus fratercnlns Swinhoe, Ihis 1870. p. 244 (Hainan !) 



Under the above name I enumerate, provisionally and somewhat doubtfully, 

 a bird obtained at about oOOO ft. on Gunoug Tahau. It is a male, and agrees 

 perfectly with a male collected by Mr. A. L. Butler on the Gunong Ijau. It is still 

 much smaller than typical y/v^^rci^i^MS from Hainan, but I cannot at present separate 

 the Malayan birds, having no series of them before me. 



There is a whole literature about the differences between P. speciosus and 

 fraterculus, but it appears to me that the truth — i.e. that the two are different in 

 their extremes, though connected in some places by intermediate forms — has never 

 been grasped by those who were most interested in the question. Without 

 mentioning former writings on the subject, I have to refer to the more recent 

 controversy between Messrs. E. W. Oates and E. C. Stuart Baker. In the Jounuil 

 of the Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. ix. (1894) Mr. Baker expresses his opinion that 

 " P. fraterculus is a bad species, and should be supj)ressed." He arrived at this 

 conclusion after having examined a series of Cachar specimens only. In the same 

 volume, p. 480, Mr. Oates accuses Mr. Baker of expressing a hasty opinion, assures 

 hiiu that the two minivets {P. speciosus and P. fraterculus) " are perfectly distinct 

 species or races," and that " the really important and unfailing character for 

 discriminating the two birds is the length of tail." lu the same journal, vol. x., 

 Mr. Baker then shows that his opponent's "really important and unfailing 

 character " is of no value in a series of Cachar birds, and on p. 631 of the same 

 volume he gives further evidence of his opinion. 



Reading this controversy, one must conclude that Jlr. Oates is wrong. This is 

 indeed the case, in so far as he laid down a hard-and-fast rule, declaring that the 

 two species differed in having tails exceeding 4 in., or not exceeding 3'5 in., and 

 that he accused his adversary of hasty work, without having seen his fine series 

 from (Jachar, which he had carefully examined. On the other hand, however, it is 

 quite clear that Mr. Baker, while being perfectly correct in his observations on 

 Cachar birds, concluded somewhat too far. He certainlv showed that Mr. Uates' 



