54 Mr. D. G. Elliot on certain Species of 



III. — Remarks on certain Species of the Corvidse and Paradi- 

 seidffij with a Description of an apparently new Species of 

 Cyanocorax. By D. G. Elliot, F.R.S.E. &c. 



In the lately published third volume of his 'Catalogue of Birds ' 

 (p. 317 et seqq.), Mr. Sharpe has acknowledged three species 

 of the genus Platylophus, as follows : — P. galericulatus (Cuv.), 

 from Java, with a jet-black plumage; P. ardesiacus, Cab., 

 from the Malayan peninsula, with a slaty black plumage (back 

 inclining to olive-brown, beneath slaty grey) ; and P. coronatus 

 (Raffles), from Sumatra and Borneo, with a rufous-brown 

 plumage. Cuvier (who evidently named the bird from Le- 

 vaillant's figure) and Vieillot (who gave a short descrip- 

 tion of it in the same year, under Cuvier's name) apparently 

 had never seen the species, and their type specimens, if ex- 

 isting, are not known. Having had occasion lately to inves- 

 tigate a portion of the Corvidse, my attention was drawn to 

 the specimens in the Paris Museum which served as the 

 types of Lesson^s Vanga galericulata, which he refers to 

 Cuvier's Garrulus galericulatus, and the result of my exami- 

 nation is as follows : — There are two examples, representing 

 male and female, both brought from Java by M. Diard in 

 3821. The male is in the black dress characteristic of 

 P. galericulatus, Cuv., but is not in fully adult plumage, as I 

 perceive by comparison with another male, also from Java, 

 brought to the museum in 1861 by M. Steenstra. Lesson's 

 bird has the greater coverts, primaries, and secondaries greyish 

 brown on the outer webs, while this part in the adult is dark 

 purplish brown. The back is also inclined to a greyish hue. 

 In other respects it resembles M. Steenstra's adult specimen, 

 though not quite so black in any part of its plumage. 



The female of Lesson's example (so marked by its collector) 

 has the wings and body rufous and the tail slaty black, and is 

 in the style called Lanius coronatus by Raffles. Two young 

 males in the museum from Malacca are intermediate between 

 these type specimens, having rufous wings, a greyish back, and 

 slate-grey beneath, and many of the feathers tipped with white. 

 This is the style termed P. ardesiacus by Cabanis ; but the ex- 



