Letters, Announcements, ^c. 391 



to only a probability, and in the absence of the exact words 

 used by Mr, Hodgson when recording the fact of having dis- 

 sected the bird (if any such exist) , there need be little hesi- 

 tation in now reframing the synonymy of the species thus : — 

 B. affinis, Blyih, =Podargus parvulus, Temm., = Otothrix 

 hodgsoni, G. R. Grayj=5. castaneus, Hume. 



But the key-stone of Mr. Blanford^s contention is the 

 statement that the three specimens in Mr. Hume^s collec- 

 tion, of what Mr. Blanford identifies with B. affinis (but 

 which I venture to contend are B. javensis, apud Blyth,= 

 B. stellatus — B. stictopterus) 'Miave been compared with 

 Blyth's original type in Calcutta." I do not quite gather 

 whether Mr. Blanford himself personally compared Mr. 

 Hume^s three specimens with the type of B. affinis, or whether 

 Mr. Blanford accepted the correctness of the identification at 

 second hand. Will Mr, Blanford kindly investigate the 

 history of the specimen he alludes to as being Mr. Blyth^s 

 type of B. affinis ? Mr. Bly th described the species from a 

 Malaccan skin obtained through Mr. Frith in 1847. If my 

 own personal knowledge of B. javensis, apud Blyth (dating 

 back, and continued since, some thirty years), and if the pub- 

 lished descriptions and remarks of Mr. Blyth did not irre- 

 sistibly oblige me to doubt the authenticity of the specimen 

 Mr. Blanford (as described by him) accepts as the type of 

 B. affinis, I would refrain from asking him to take the trouble 

 of re-examining it. If it be the type specimen of B. affinis, 

 what is B. javensis, apud Blyth, ex Malacca ? for neither 

 B. javensis, Horsf., nor its ally, Podargus cornutus, Temm., 

 occur in Malacca, so far as is at present known. 



Mr, Blanford further states his opinion that B. punctatus, 

 Hume, is distinct from B. moniliger, Layard. Specimens of a 

 species of Batrachostomus, from Travancore, are identified by 

 Mr. Hume with 5, moniliger, a species described from a Ceylon 

 example, while B. punctatus, Hume, ex Ceylon, is assumed not 

 to belong to B. moniliger, but to be a new species. Four phases 

 of B. moniliger are represented in my series of Batrachostomi 

 ex Ceylon j and one of the phases, that assumed by the almost 

 adult male, agrees, feather for feather, with Mr. Hume's de- 

 tailed description. Mr. Hume's single example and type 



