Bii'ds of Baldbac and Palawan. 37 



distance^ formed a constant attraction to a variety of birds, 

 and particularly so to the Starlings^ every one being tenanted 

 by a flock of them in the early morning. The attraction 

 seems to consist in a drop of sweet liquid which lies at the 

 bottom of each flower, and which I often saw tlie Starlings 

 engaged in sipping. The Cockatoos and Parrots appeared 

 to bite off the flowers, as their short beaks prevented their 

 getting at the nectar otherwise. Besides these birds, Chlor- 

 opsis palawanensis, zEgithina viridis, Buchanya palawanensis, 

 Artanddes sumatrensis, Corvus jmsillus, and all the Sun-birds 

 and Flower-peckers may be seen at one and the same time on a 

 single tree, while at intervals a troop of monkeys will invade 

 it, tearing off" entire bunches of flowers, biting a few and 

 then flinging them down on the beach below. Where the 

 trees overhang the shore, the sand is thickly strewn with the 

 petals and bunches of the flowers, and seen from a distance 

 it appears as if glazed with a stream of arterial blood flowing 

 down the beach to the brink of the sea. It would be diffi- 

 cult to imagine a more gorgeous bit of tropical colour than 

 is presented by one of these trees thickly studded with large, 

 brilliant scarlet-lake pyramids of bloom, and, perched or 

 flying among the naked branches, snowy-white Cockatoos, 

 rich golden and black Orioles, shining malachite-green Tant/- 

 gnathi and Prionituri, with a crowd of smaller birds, — all lit 

 up by the fresh morning sunlight on a background of pale 

 blue sky. Dry skins afford no adequate idea of the gloss of 

 plumage aud its purity of hue when the living birds are seen 

 under the above conditions. 



Pitta propinqua, Sharpe. 



Pitta erythrogastra, Sharpe, Ibis, 1888, p. 200; Everett, 

 P. Z. S. 1889, p. 225; Whitehead, Ibis, 1890, p. 50, and 

 1893, p. 504. 



It may be safely assumed that the descriptions of the 

 young plumage and of the soft parts of P. erythrogastra in 

 Mr. Whitehead's review of the Pittidoe in 'The Ibis' for 1893 

 were taken from Palawan birds, and that they do not, there- 

 fore, appertain to true P. erythrogastra, although it is pro- 

 bable that the same description would apply to both species. 



