280 ' PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. los 



National Museum of the Philippines. Much of the taxonomic work 

 was carried out at the American Museum of Natural History, where I 

 received many courtesies from Drs. Dean Amadon and Charles 

 Vaurie, and at the U. S. National Museum, with the help of Mr. H. G. 

 Deignan. Additional specimens were borrowed through the kind- 

 ness of Dr. Raymond A. Paynter, Jr., of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, Dr. Austin L. Rand of the Chicago Natural History Museum, 

 Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Jr., of the Yale Peabody Museum, and Dr. 

 Dwain W. Warner of the Minnesota Museum of Natural History. 



Lonchura leucogastra (Blyth) 



Three subspecies of the white-breasted mannikin are currently 

 recognized: Lonchura leucogastra leucogastra (Blyth) of Siam, the 

 Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra; L. I. everetti (Tweeddale) of the Philip- 

 pines and northern Borneo; and L. I. castanonota Mayr of southern 

 Borneo. Delacour (1943, p. 82) has shown that Lonchura leucogas- 

 troides (Horsfield and Moore) of Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Lombok, 

 formerly considered to be a subspecies of L. leucogastra, is not closely 

 related to the latter species. 



Tweeddale described the Philippine everetti (type locality Monte 

 Alban, Luzon) in 1877, and later (1878, p. 622) commented that 

 specimens from Palawan appeared to be intermediate between 

 everetti and leucogastra. He assigned them to the former, working 

 under a strictly binomial system. After having examined over 60 

 Philippine specimens (this species is by far the least common Phihp- 

 pine Lonchura), I have come to the conclusion that the name everetti 

 should be confined to the birds of Luzon and a few adjacent islands. 

 The remainder of the range hitherto ascribed to everetti is occupied by 

 a form which, although intermediate in many respects between 

 everetti and leucogastra, occupies such an extensive range that I feel 

 it merits recognition as an additional subspecies, which may be called 



Lonchura leucogastra manueli, new subspecies 



Type: USNM 201273; adult male; "near Isabella" [=Isabela], 

 Basilan Island, Philippine Islands; Jan. 26, 1906; E. A. Mearns, 

 collector (original No. 13903). 



Diagnosis: Similar to L. L everetti and L. I. leucogastra, but, in 

 general, more deeply colored than the former, less deeply colored 

 than the latter (details below); bUl (except for Palawan birds; see 

 measurements) averaging larger than that of either subspecies; wing 

 averaging longer than that of leucogastra. Although in some char- 

 acters manueli displays a condition intermediate between everetti 

 and leucogastra, in others it presents a combination of characters 

 typical of one subspecies or the other with a remarkable constancy 



