126 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



been, I believe, here in the Paris Museum ; and it was by 

 means of this example and the type of P. castanea (which I 

 purchased from Mr. Gould, and which is now in the Zoolo- 

 gical Museum at Stuttgart) that I became aware the two 

 were the same species, and consequently placed Mr. Gould's 

 bird among the synonyms of P. duvauceli. From their appear- 

 ance and general mode of coloration, we are fairly entitled to 

 believe that P. duvauceli and P. macrolopha are as thoroughly 

 distinct species as any that are to be found in the Phasianidse. 

 Besides the chestnut on the back and sides of the neck, the 

 flank-feathers, perfectly exhibited in the plate in my work, 

 diifer entirely from any I have ever seen in any specimen of P. 

 macrolopha ; and I have examined a great many. Mr. Gould's 

 plate does not show these correctly : the chestnut colouring 

 is exaggerated in its extent ; and the black feathers with their 

 light edges are almost entirely suppressed, a few only show- 

 ing just above the leg. Temminck's text, it is true, does not 

 describe his plate accurately, but leans more to P. macrolopha ; 

 but as he says " La gravure ayant ete faite depuis longtemps, 

 meme avant la publication des deux ovrages anglais oxx. se 

 trouvent de tres-bonnes figures de notre oiseau,^^ it is most 

 probable that when he wrote his description he took it from 

 an example of P. macrolopha, instead of from the specimen 

 figured — which was in the Paris Museum, and which he may 

 not have seen for a long time, and was confounded in his mind 

 with the newly figured P. macrolopha. However this may be, 

 the types show that P. castanea and P. duvauceli are the same 

 species, and quite different from P. macrolopha ; and I do not 

 believe Mr. Hume will ever succeed in proving them all to 

 be one species. 



D. G. Elliot. 

 Paris, Dec. 8, 1877. 



Obituary of the late Mr. R. Swinhoe, F.R.S. 

 KoBEKT Swinhoe, whose premature death on the 28tli of 

 October last we all have to deplore, was born in Calcutta on 

 the 1st of September, 1836. He was brought to England at 



