Count Salvadori on some Netv-Guinea Birds. 269 



It is worth while to meutiou that in the phite 25 bis of 

 Lesson's ' Oiseaux de Paradis ' a male is figured not quite 

 adult (but older than the specimen in transitional plumage, 

 which I have described above, having the orange mantle and 

 the black throat), which has the wings olive-brown, and on 

 the upper part of the breast those dark marks which have been 

 described in Sericulus xanthogaster ; besides, in that plate of 

 Lesson's the shafts of the tail-feathers are yellow under- 

 neath. 



If now I arrange in a series, first the two specimens col- 

 lected by D'Albertis (which agree with Sericulus ocanthogaster), 

 first the younger one and then the older — second, the speci- 

 men of Xanthomelus aureus in transitional plumage, which I 

 have described above — third, the figure of X. aureus, which 

 is to be found in the plate 25 bis of Lesson^s work — and last 

 the fully adult males of X. aureus, we have a gradual series, 

 which demonstrate most clearly that Sericulus xanthogaster, 

 Schleg., is nothing else than the young bird of X. aureus. 



I wish also to mention that in all these specimens the bill, 

 the feet, the wings, and the tail have exactly the same shape 

 and dimensions. The bill in the younger specimen of the 

 two referable to Sericulus xanthogaster is nearly all black, a 

 little paler at the base of the mandible underneath ; in the 

 other, which is a little older, the base of the bill is all round 

 a little paler ; in the young male in transitional plumage the 

 base of the bill is more decidedly pale, but not so whitish as 

 in the adult birds. 



I think that we can now fix the systematic position of 

 Xanthomelus aureus more satisfactorily than it has been done 

 hitherto. 



The young specimens of this species, which have been 

 named Sericulus xanthogaster, show most certainly, as has 

 been pointed out by Mr. Elliot, a great likeness to some 

 species of the genus Chlamydodera ; and, besides, when we 

 consider the characters of the bill, of the feet, and of the 

 wings of the adult birds of Xanthomelus aureus, we must ad- 

 mit that there is a great similitude between this most bril- 

 liant bird and the somewhat more plain ones of the genus 



