Letters, Announcements, &^c. 277 



than by actual contact with the soil. From the above ex- 

 periments, therefore, I presume that a like cause produces 

 the same effect of colouring in the case of some Whoopers 

 and Bewick^s Swans, and on the breasts of some species of 

 Ducks. 



Yours faithfully, 



H. Stevenson. 



Norwich, Feb. 18th, 187G. 



Turin, February 2Gth, 1876, 

 Zoological Museum. 



Sir, — Lord Walden, in his edition of Blyth^'s " Birds of 

 Burmah" (Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xliii, pt. 2, p. 126), speak- 

 ing of my Cymborhijnchus malaccensis, says that he supposes 

 that I have satisfied myself about the type of Latham^'s Great- 

 biUed Tody having a black tail, without white spots. It seems 

 that his Lordship has overlooked that in my paper on the 

 genus Cymborhynchus (Atti R. Ac. Sc. Torino, ix. p. 418) I 

 have said that, from a letter of Herr von Pelzeln, to whom I 

 had applied for information, I learnt that the type of La- 

 tham's species, still preserved in the Museum of Vienna, has 

 not its own tail. Such being the case, I thought that we could 

 safely refer to Latham's species the specimens with the tail 

 complelely black, as such have been described by subsequent 

 writers (Raffles, Wagler, and others) ; and, besides, I think 

 that Latham would have perceived the white spots on the 

 tail had he described a specimen of my C. malaccensis. 



I take this opportunity of mentioning that having just 

 received the first two parts of Gould's ' Birds of New Guinea,' 

 I have been rather surprised to find Ptiladela hoyer'i (G. R. 

 Gr.) figured under the name of Camyephaga strenua, Schleg., 

 which is a much larger bird, and also otherwise different. I 

 will also mention that Diphyllodes speciosa must stand as D. 

 magnifica, as Pennant gave to this bird the name of Para- 

 disea magnifica (Faunula indica in Forster's Zool. Ind. p. 40) 

 (ex D'Aubent, PI. Enl. 631) in 1781, two years before Bod- 



