Vol. 32, pp. 29-32 April 11, 1919 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW CONURUS FROM THE 



ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 



BY HARRY C. OBERHOLSER. 



Examples of Conurus 1 fasciatus from the Andaman Islands 

 prove, on examination, to be subspecifically different from 

 mainland birds. As they seem to have no available name, 

 we propose for them 



Conurus fasciatus abbotti, subsp. nov. 2 



Chars, subsp. — Similar to Conurus fasciatus fasciatus from Tenasserim, 

 India, but much larger; upper and lower parts paler. 



Description. — Type, adult male, No. 178,825, U. S. Nat. Mus.; South 

 Andaman Island, Andaman Islands, Bay of Bengal, January 17, 1901; 

 Dr. W. L. Abbott. Anterior edge of forehead narrowly black, connecting 

 with a somewhat broader line extending across the upper part of the 

 lores from the bill to the eyes; forehead behind this black line greenish 

 glaucous, passing posteriorly into pale dull glaucous blue and laterally 

 into turtle green; remainder of pileum olive buff with a wash of lavender 

 gray; cervix and anterior portion of the sides of the neck, night green; 

 upper back and posterior portion of the sides of the neck, rather dark 

 absinthe green; lower back and scapulars, Scheele's green, verging a little 

 toward calliste green, and passing into calliste green on the upper tail- 

 coverts, and, like all the rest of the upper parts, excepting the pileum and 

 cervix, with more or less evident shimmering vermiculations like those of 

 moire silk; middle pair of tail-feathers methyl green, edged broadly 

 with Scheele's green on their basal portion, where this color occupies 

 nearly all of the feathers, decreasing in width distally and disappearing 

 about one-third of the distance from the end; remaining rectrices dull 

 Scheele's green, narrowly methyl green along a part of the shaft, all the 

 shafts dark brown; wings dark fuscous, the inner webs of the quills paler, 

 the primaries narrowly edged on their inner webs, and the secondaries 

 more widely margined on the same webs with colonial buff; exposed upper 



iFor the use of Conurus in place of Palaeornis, cf. Oberholser, Smithson. Misc. Coll., 

 LX, No. 7, October 26, 1912, p. 4; Mathews, Novit. Zool., XVIII, 1911, p. 11. 

 2 Named for the well-known naturalist, Dr. W. L. Abbott. 



10— Pboc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 32, 1919. (29) 



