1887.] PROCEEDIXGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 277 



(Plate X, fig-. 7), a feature also sliowu iu Gould's plate (B. xVustr., VI, 

 pi. 50).* 



This mistake of his is easily explained, however, when we consider 

 that the feathered throat belongs to his Formosau specimens, which 

 are not identical with the Australian P. regia, as 1 shall attempt to 

 l^rove later on. For the present it suifices to state that Mr. Seebohm 

 now holds that there occur in Japan two species of Spoonbills, which 

 he calls P. Jeucorodia (synon. major), and P. regia (synon. minor). 



For reasons which will appear in the following remarks 1 am not 

 prepared to accept Mr. Seebohm's nomenclature. The material at hand 

 is scanty, it is true, but in several points it gives results at variance 

 with those of Mr. Seebohm, and which cannot be disposed of with the 

 mere statement that the birds in question are "undoubtedly" identical. 

 It will be useful, however, first to review the characters assigned to the 

 different forms, confining ourselves here to the first mentioned species. 



Mr. Taczanowski is the latest author to compare them, apropos of a 

 pair of adult birds from Sungatsha, Ussuri, which he refers to Platalea 

 major. He says (Bulletin Soc. Zool. France, X, 1885, p. 47G), that these 

 birds, in addition to the distinctive character of the naked part of the 

 throat being more restricted, have the tips of the remiges black, a 

 feature only found in the young of the European form ; they have, be- 

 sides, the crest less elongated, and the jugular region less yellowish. 



That the Japanese birds when fully adult also have the wing tips pure 

 white is undeniable. Blakiston's Hakodadi specimen is said to have the 

 wing entirely white, and so they are in an adult specimen iu the Tokio 

 Educational Museum (Xo. 761), and in another in the Xational Museum 

 iu Tokio, according to Blakiston's manuscript notes. Black tips to 

 the quills are, therefore, also a sign of immaturity in the Japanese form. 

 That Taczanowski's Ussuri birds had crests combined with black-tipped 

 quills is not so strange, for the European bird, according to Xaumann, 

 assumes a quite perceptible crest in the second year, and the Ussuri 

 birds may not have molted the quills of the first plumage. (Jn the 

 other hand, there is a possibility that the eastern birds (P. major) may 

 retain the black tips longer than the true P. leucorodia. 



The less amount of yellowish on the jugulum and the smaller size of 

 the crest also agree with the supposed immaturity of Taczanowski's 

 specimens. 



There remains the alleged smaller extent of the naked space on the 

 throat in the eastern form, which also is the character ascribed to 

 P. major by Professor Schlegel. Keeping in mind that the type of the 

 latter, and that Taczanowski's birds have black primary tips, conse- 



* With only one specimen of P. regia I felt a little uncertain, but in reply to a re- 

 quest to examine a specimen in the American Museum, New York, Professor J. A. 

 Allen kindly writes me as follows : " The naked black space on the throat of our ad. 

 P. regia is over 21 inches louj; and extends fully 2 inches posteriorly to the angle of 

 the mouth." 



