Letters, Announcements, ^c. 385 



Mr. Sharpe makes no endeavour to show what Brisson^s 

 bird may have been. About the genus there is no doubt, and 

 yet it is the only species of the genus described by Brisson. 

 There were only two species possible for him to have described. 

 One, A. fuscus, is out of the question ; the other is this Phi- 

 lippine species, with its wide range over the whole Malayan 

 archipelago, Celebes, the Moluccas, parts of New Guinea with 

 several of its islands, and parts of Australia. If a " black and 

 white ^^ species like A. melaleucus existed in the Philippines, as 

 Drs. Hartlaub and Finsch at one tinae thought (P. Z. S. 1868, 

 pp. 116, 117), it could not be Brisson^s bird ; for he described 

 his species as being blackish. But Mr. Sharpe also admits 

 that the archipelago is inhabited by only one species. 



It is not my object to revise critically this monograph of 

 the Artami. But when Mr. Sharpe says, ''^what the bird 

 from the Pelew Islands is, cannot be determined without a 

 specimen,^' and when we find this bird altogether omitted from 

 his list of species composing the genus, it seems desirable to 

 note that it has been described by Dr. Finsch (Journ. Mus. 

 Geoffr. Hft. xiii. p. 41) as a distinct species, under the title of 

 A.peleivensis, and that, quite lately. Dr. Finsch (P. Z. S. 1877, 

 p. 739) has referred his readers to that account for the dif- 

 ferences that distinguish it from A. melaleucus. It may 

 be added to Mr. Sharpe's notes (/. c.) that the Celebesian 

 form of ^. leucorhynchus has been entitled A. celebensis by 

 the late Dr. Briiggemann. A species from the " Inseln des 

 stillen Oceans " has been described by the same author as 

 new, under the title of A. brevipes, which, on Dr. Briigge- 

 mann's authority, I may state, is nothing but A. fuscus. It 

 may be added that the same author, in the belief that A. 

 insignis was the true A. monachus, has given the latter species 

 the title of A. spectabilis (Ann. N. H. ser. 5, i. p. 349). 



Yours obediently, 



TWEEDDALE. 



Yester, 24th May, 1878. 



Captain Blakiston, writing from Hakodate, Japan, Dec. 

 30th, 1877, calls our attention to the following errors in Mr. 



SER. IV. VOL. II. 2d 



