316 NOVTTATES ZOOLOQICAE XXV. 1918. 



Dr. van Oort kindly informs me that the two specimens collected by Reinwardt 

 are in the Leyden Museum, and that one is from Timor, the other Ternate. As 

 the species does neither occur in Celebes nor in Timor, the correct terra typica 

 for alecto is Ternate ! 



[Mathews {Austral Avian Record,!, p. 126, 1912) has not only accepted Celebes 

 as the terra tj'pica, while the species does not occur on that island, but he says 

 that he compared the Cape York specimens " with Celebes birds." This is 

 impossible, as there are no Celebes birds ! If Mr. Mathews says that the Cape 

 York birds are "abundantly distinct" from Celebes specimens, he probably com- 

 pared Papuan skins, whicli are indeed very different, and his " typical birds " were 

 probably Papuan ones, as he says the new subspecies has a narrower bill and a 

 longer wng. If he had compared the Cape York examples with typical AustraUan 

 nitidiis he could hardly have said this, because there is no difference, except that 

 our Cape York examples have slightly shorter wings, a character which, how- 

 ever, requires confirmation by a larger series. Why, therefore, did Mathews 

 not compare his Cape York form, which in 1912 he calls Monarcha alecto camp- 

 belli, and one year after Piezorhynchus alecto camphelU, \\ith the Australian 

 nitidus ? As, according to our specimens and judging from Mathews's words, 

 liis camphelli is nearest to nitidus, comparison with the latter alone would have 

 been instructive.] 



Myiagra cyanoleuca Vieill. 



Platt/rhi/nchos cyanoleucus Vieillot, Xouv. Did. d'Hist. Nat. xxvii. p. 11 (1818 — " Timor " ! Errore, 

 substituted corr. locality N.S. Wales, Mathews, Austr. Arran Rec. ii. p. 97. Cf. Pucheran, 

 Arch. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. Paris. Tii. p. 358). 



Myiagra nitida Gould, %n. B. Austr. pt. iv. App. p. 1 (1838 — "New South Wales and Van 

 Diemen's Land "). 



Myiagra nnpta Hartert, Nov. Zool. 1898. p. 526 (Sudest Island). 



It is not often that we find the same forms of purely Australian small 

 Passerine birds in Austraha and the Loiiisiades, wliile they are absent from New 

 Guinea. This, however, is one of those cases, though possibly M. cyanoleuca 

 may yet be discovered in New Guinea, as it is also found on Woodlark Island 

 and the D'Entrecasteaux group (Fergusson Island). Specimens from Sudest 

 Island are indistinguishable from AustraUan ones. 



Myiagra rubecula sciuronun subsp. nov. 



We are obUged to separate the Myiagra from Sudest Island, under the above 

 name, for the reasons explained below, but in order to do so we found it neces- 

 sary to review all the allied forms. We were greatly assisted in tliis by Mr. 

 G. M. Mathews lending us a series of 80 specimens from Austraha, including three 

 of his types. We have at last come to the following conclusions : 



Myiagra rubecula (Todus rubecula Latham, 1801) was described from New 

 South Wales, Myiagra concinna Gould, 1848, from Port Essington. As in each 

 of these two locaUties only one form is found, we can apply these names with 

 certainty. Mr. Mathews treats concinna as a subspecies of rubecula, but this 

 view cannot be upheld, as at Cape York and a great part of (Northern) Queens- 

 land rubecula and concimm occur, at various seasons, side by side. This is 

 surprising, as the two species are so much alike, in fact more so than the two 



