AND ITS NEAREST ALLIES. 173 



The black-tailed female at Brussels is described by Du- 

 bois as follows: Lively red, darker on the upper surface 

 than on the lower, upper wing-coverts, secondaries and 

 upper tail-coverts vermiculated with brown ; throat whitish , 

 the feathers on neck and upper breast more or less edged 

 laterally with white, the red feathers on the rest of the 

 lower surface entirely margined with white ; under tail- 

 coverts black , tipped with brown ; tail-feathers black. 



According to Dr. Dubois , this bird (the female type of 

 his Euplocamus sumatranus) differs from the female of the 

 allied Boruean species, L. nohilis^ in having the centre of 

 the feathers on breast, abdomen and flanks lively red 

 instead of sooty brown , and in having the brown vermi- 

 culations on lower back and wings less strongly pronounced 

 than in the latter species. In fact one of the two birds 

 in the Amsterdam collection , said to come from Sumatra , 

 fully agrees with that at Brussels , while the other has the 

 feathers on the lower surface black instead of red. This 

 latter specimen differs moreover from all our black-tailed 

 females in having the two innermost pairs of tail-feathers 

 rufous like in the female of L. Vieilloti, and the next pair 

 rufous on the inner, black on the outer web, while all 

 the black tail-feathers are very conspicuously tipped with 

 rufous. The feathers on throat and chest are black with 

 white lateral edges and a not very broad chestnut-brown 

 terminal bar, so that throat and chest are making the 

 impression of being black, barred with chestnut, while in 

 all our Bornean specimens the red is the principal color 

 of the chest, the black being reduced to the basal part of 

 the feathers. 



As to the red centres on the feathers of breast and 

 flanks , said by Dubois to form the distinguishing character 

 by which this species is unvariably known from the black- 

 breasted L. nobilis, I cannot consider it as very trustworthy, 

 as the Leyden collection contains a black-tailed female from 

 Borneo in which the sooty black feathers on breast and 

 flanks are very broadly barred across with rufous on their 



Notes from the Leyden Museum, "Vol. X.VII. 



