NOVITATES ZOOLOGIOAE XXV. 191S. 325 



As Hartert already said, Novitates Zoologicae, 1898, p. 530, the St. Aignan 

 specimens are somewhat intermediate, sho\ving mostly no real black bar on the 

 under wing-coverts, but there is also one specimen from Sudest in which the 

 black bar is only indicated, while in typical L. h. devittatus Hart, it is quite 

 absent, and the latter is also larger, with a more powerful bill and gennally 

 much longer wings. 



GeoJfroyus ai-uensis sudestiensis de Vis. 



We have again received several specimens, among them some that are 

 evidently fulh' adult females. These latter have the crown dark green like the 

 back, not brown ! 



Ninox goldii Gurn. 



Ni)in.t guldii Gurncy, Ihis, 1SS3. p. 171 (8.E. New Guinea). This locality is almost certain to be 

 erroneous. It seems that N. ijoldii does not occur in S.E. New Guinea at all, but is an island 

 bird. Like other birds received from Goldie and collected by Hunstein — cf. Pitta finschii, 

 Pachyceplmla joiiis, Phonygammas hunsleini — Ninox goldii, though said to have come from 

 " S.E. New Guinea " — a term at that time evidently including the D'Entrecasteaux group 

 — and sometimes labelled in the British Museum " Astrolabe Mts.," must have come from 

 Fergusson Island. The original spelling is goldii, not goldiei. 



Ninox rosseliana Tristram, Ihi^, 1880. p. 557 (Rossel Island). 



We have again received two fine specimens from Sudest Island. Now, 

 these as well as all the other four received previously from that island are under- 

 neath more whitish and have the thighs Ughter, more yellowish than rufous, 

 compared with four skins from Rossel Island, wliich again have the thighs a 

 little brighter rufous, not quite so brown as in the Fergusson and Goodenough 

 specimens. The differences, however, are not quite constant, the underside 

 being alike in a bird from Sudest and those from Rossel and the D'Entrecasteaux 

 Islands, and the thighs of one Rossel bird are hardly darker than in some from 

 Sudest, while the difference between Rossel and D'Entrecasteaux specimens are 

 altogether negligible. It wiU therefore, for the present, be safer to unite all 

 these birds under the name goldii. 



The iris of adult Sudest Island birds is marked as bright yellow and golden 

 yellow. 



(In the Ibis, Suppl. ii. 1915, p. 257, Mr. Ogilvie-Grant made some remarks 

 on N. theomacha, terricolor, and goldii. He quite correctly pointed out that 

 Sharpe wrongly united goldii with the other two forms, and this was already 

 shown by Hartert in Novitates Zoologicae, 1896, p. 246. On the other hand, 

 N. theomacha and terricolor, which Mr. Ogilvie-Grant separates as two species, 

 are not distinct, at least not for the reasons given by the latter, the spots on the 

 belly varying not only from white to butt' but are sometimes even absent). 



The following species must be added to the fauna of Sudest : 



Astur poliocephalus (Gray). 

 1 immature cj, 25. ii. 1916. 



