464 Mr. W. R. Ogilvie Grant on the 



whitish buff finely mottled with black ; belly rather paler and 

 more coarsely marked. 



Adult female. General colour uniform chestnut, with 

 scarcely a trace of any black markings except on the 

 secondary quills ; in other respects very similar in plumage 

 to the female of B. septimus. The outer webs of the scapu- 

 lars rufous buff, each with a small subterminal black spot ; 

 greater and median wing-coverts with a terminal white spot 

 on the outer web, edged internally with black ; nuchal and 

 pectoral bands white, edged with black. 



81 «. Alcyone cyanipectus (La Fresnaye) and A. philip- 

 piNENSis (Gould). 



I have read Messrs. Bourns and Worcester's letter in 'The 

 Ibis ' (1895, p. 404), in which they express the opinion that I 

 am in error in maintaining that there are two such species as 

 those named above. They write that " without doubting in 

 the least Mr. Whitehead's ability to ascertain the sexes of 

 birds correctly, we are still perfectly certain that Mr. Ogilvie 

 Grant's conclusion is incorrect." This is a little difficult to 

 understand, for if Mr. Whitehead's specimens are properly 

 sexed, then without doubt it follows that my conclusions 

 must be right. In case any mistake should have been made 

 I wrote to Mr. Whitehead and have had the following 

 reply : — " I think there is some mistake as to the little blue 

 Kingfishers, A. cyanipectus and A. pMlippinensis. If I re- 

 member aright there is a young female with a dull-coloured 

 bill like the female, in which the band does not cross the 

 chest ; the males have a ring of blue across the chest. I 

 was very ill, when the case went off, with bad dysentery, and 

 the temperature up in the nineties, so mistakes are not to be 

 wondered at; I quite support Major Wardlaw Ramsay in 

 thinking that they are ^ and ? of one species." Mr. 

 Whitehead also sent me a copy of his journal, with which I 

 checked over the sexes of the specimens, each being separately 

 numbered, and I find that in each case they are correctly 

 marked according to the entry in the journal. I may here 

 remark that the specimen lacking the blue pectoral band and 



