136 Letters, Announcements, ^-c. 



The Pelew bird is also referred by Dr. Finsch to the Ocypterus 

 leucorhynchvs, Cuv., of Hahn (Vog. aus As.^ Afr. &c. pt. xix. 

 t. 2) ; and the plate is characterized as excellent. Hahn's 

 figure represents all the dark plumage jet-black ; but he de- 

 scribes the head, neck, wings, and tail as being slate-grey, 

 and the back only as sooty black. Although styled a ^'figura 

 optima " by Dr. Finsch, the upper tail-coverts in Hahn^s 

 plate are coloured black instead of white. Hahn gives the 

 East Indies, especially Java, as the range of the species he 

 describes and figures. 



Now, putting aside the fact that there is no known species 

 of Artamus whose dark shade of colouring is nearly so in- 

 tensely black as that depicted by D^Aubenton, by Sonnerat, 

 and by Hahn, not even the Pelew species, there is the still 

 more convincing fact that there is no record of any author 

 having ever seen authenticated Philippine examples of two 

 species of Ai'tamus. Dr. Finsch {in epist.), kindly replying 

 to my queries on this point, informs me that he has never 

 seen authenticated Philippine examples of more than one 

 species; and they belonged to the Sunda-Islands form, A. 

 leucogaster, Valenc. If, then, examples of a second Philip- 

 pine species are unknown, and if, as is admitted by Dr. 

 Finsch, the species which is known to inhabit the Philip- 

 pines, and especially Luzon, is identical with that of the 

 Sunda Islands, this last must take the Linnaean title of 

 the Philippine bird. In this view the synonymy of the species 

 as set forth by me in my memoir on the birds of Celebes (Tr. 

 Z. S. viii. p. Q7) will, I think, be found correct. My excuse 

 for writing to you now so fully on the subject is not only be- 

 cause so distinguished an ornithologist as Dr. Finsch has dif- 

 fered from this interpretation of the facts, but because another 

 most accurate naturalist, Count Salvadori, after accepting 

 my views in his meritorious work on the birds of Borneo, has 

 since adopted, in his notes on some Celebcan birds (Ann. Mus. 

 Civ. St. Nat. Genova, vii. p. 16), those of Dr. Finsch. If the 

 Pelew species of Artamus specifically differs from A. mela- 

 leucus (Forst.), it would appear to require a distinctive title. 



I remain, yours, &c., 

 Chislehurst, December 1875. Walden. 



