416 Mr. P. L. Sclater on Dr. A. B. Meyer's 



any before attained, either by myself or others. They are the 

 result of following out a simple principle of classification 

 whose partial application has been long accepted ; and they 

 possess, I think, the merit of introducing some intelligible 

 order into the most extensive of all the natural groups of 

 birds, and the one whose complex and divergent affinities 

 have always been a source of the greatest perplexity to syste- 

 matists. I now submit my proposed arrangement to the kind 

 consideration of ornithologists as one well suited for practical 

 use until a more generally acceptable one is arrived at. In 

 passing judgment on it, I beg them to bear in mind that I do 

 not set up the " first primary '' as an infallible guide to be 

 blindly followed, but only as a clue by means of which we 

 may sometimes extricate ourselves from the labyrinth of 

 doubtful Passerine affinities in which we so often lose our 

 way. 



XLI. — Dr. A. B. Meyer's Ornithological Discoveries in New 

 Guinea. By P. L. Sclater. 



Beginning in February last, Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer has 

 made a series of communications to the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences of Vienna upon the ornithological results of his 

 recent expedition to New Guinea. Of these, altogether six in 

 number, we have lately received the full text, abstracts of 

 them having previously come to hand. In the first of these"^ 

 Dr. Meyer describes seven new species : — (1) ^gotheles dubius, 

 from the Arfak mountains (perhaps =^. albertisi, Scl.) ; 

 (2) Todopsis mysorensis, from Mysore ; (3) Chrysococcyx 

 splendidus, from the Arfak mountains; (4) Ailuroedus ar- 

 fakianusf, from Atam; (5) Orthonyx nova-guinece, from the 

 Arfak mountains ; (6) Talegallus jobiensis, from Jobi ; and 

 (7) Megapodius geelvinkianus, from Mysore. Dr. Meyer also 



* " Ueber neue und ungeniigend bekannte Vogel von Neu-Guinea und 

 den Insehi der Geelvinksbai (erste Mittbeilung) von Dr. Adolf Bernhard 

 Meyer," Sitz. d. k. Akad. der Wiss. vol. xlix. 1. Abth. (Feb. 1874). 



t I examined a skin oi JEluranlus, from Atam, in Sign. D'Albertis's col- 

 lection, but could not distinf^uisli it from At. melanotis. 



