Ornithologists' Club. 125 



No. LVII. (November 28th, 1898). 



The fifty-sixth Meeting of the Club was held at the 

 Restaurant Frascati, 32 Oxford Street, on Wednesday, the 

 16th of November, 1898. Chairman : P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. 

 Twenty-three Members and six guests were present. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild sent for exhibition an egg 

 of the '" Twelve- Wired Bird of Paradise '' {Seleucides ignotu.s 

 or S. albus). It had been found in an open nest in a 

 Pandanus-swamp on the Vanapa River in British New 

 Guinea, on a Pandanus tree. The nest was a large struc- 

 ture, about 10 inches across and 6 inches high, consisting 

 externally of dry Pandanus leaves, then of pieces of rotten 

 wood, and lastly of small twigs, the cup being rather 

 flat and by no means softly lined. The single egg found 

 resembled closely those of other Paradiseidce, and especially 

 those of the genus Ptilurhis, being of about the size of a 

 Rook^s egg, and of a cream colour, with more or less longi- 

 tudinal rufous-brown and purplish-grey spots, which were 

 most frequent near the thick end. It measured 40 mm. in 

 length, and 22*5 on its broadest diameter. 



Mr. Ernst Hartert exhibited specimens of four new 

 species of " Thickheads " {Pachycephala) and described them 

 as follows : — 



Pachycephala kuehni, sp. n. 



Resembles closely P. cinerascens, Salvad., from Ternate, 

 Batjan, Tidore, Halmaheira, and Morotai, but the male 

 differs in having the abdomen and breast ochraceous buff, 

 the throat pale brownish, while the abdomen in the adult 

 male of P. cinerascens is white, or greyish white, and the 

 throat and breast are ashy grey. The upper surface is 

 slightly more brownish. The female differs fromi the female 

 of p. cinerascens in being browner above, and in having the 

 underside ochraceous buff, without any grey, and the dark 

 streaks along the shafts are much more developed. 



