Letters, Announcements, ^t. 505 



the synonymy of my ' Birds of South Africa ' are entirely at- 

 tributable to this eause; and though I shall be glad if Mr. 

 Sharpe, with the unrivalled opportunities at his command, 

 can purge my pages of their errors, I agree Avith you in re- 

 gretting (Ibis, 1875, p. 505) that he has altogether suppressed 

 the synonymy and descriptions of genera &c. in the second 

 edition now being issued. 



Since Mr. Whitmee wrote his paper I have had the good 

 fortune to make his personal acquaintance ; and together we 

 have carefully gone over the birds of Samoa, most of which 

 I procured whilst staying under his hospitable roof. Of 

 course the ' Ornithologie Ccntralpolynesiens ' of Drs. Finsch 

 and Hartlaub was our textbook, and only reference; and 

 the question then arises, Are the descriptions of species con- 

 tained in it (those of Peale, Cassin, and others) original de- 

 scriptions, or only those of the learned doctors themselves 

 from specimens acquired by them ? 



The first bird that engaged our attention was the common 

 Pachycephala, \i^hich Mr. Whitmee had previously sent me 

 amongst other specimens. What was it ? My friend said he 

 had identified it with P. icteroides ; but no mention is made, 

 in the description, of the dark ashy grey of the chin and sides 

 of the throat, which the Samoan bird possesses. I was in- 

 clined to call it P.flavifrons, as a Fijian bird, found on Ovalau, 

 answered sufficiently to the description of P. icteroides ; but 

 I was met by the '' gtitture albo" oi P. flavifrons, while all 

 notice of the yellow patch near the nostrils was omitted ! ! 



The Fijian bird [P. icteroides?) is not found in Samoa; nor 

 is the Samoan bird {P. flavifrons ?) found in Fiji. Some of 

 the Fijian species have a yellow nostril-patch ; others have 

 not (care must be taken not to confound it with P. grUffii, 

 wherein the patch is very distinct). If I am right in my 

 conjecture, the Samoan bird will stand as P. flavifrons 

 (Peale) , and the description in the ' Ornithologie ' must be 

 amended by the substitution of " loris nitide flavis" for " gut- 

 iure albo." 



But what is Pachycephala albifrons (Peale) ? None of us 

 here can identify it. I fancy it must be either an abnormal 



