THAMNOLAEA NIGRA. 17 



NOTE yi. 



ON THE SPECIFIC VALUE OE LEVAILLANT'S 

 TRAaUET COMMANDEUR 



J. BUTTIKOFER, 



In his Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique , Vol. IV, 

 p. 84, pi, 189, Levaillant described and figured, under 

 the name of »Traquet Commandeur", a species of Bird, the 

 type of which made part of the old Cabinet Temminck and 

 is at present contained in the Collections of the Leyden 

 Museum. 



Our bird in question agrees very well with the colored 

 plate given by Levaillant , with the exception of the shoulder- 

 patch, which in the bird is white with a well pronoun- 

 ced rosy tinge, the white feathers being broadly tipped 

 with rosy, especially so near the edge of the wing. The 

 same is the case in Levaillant's plate , only is the rose color 

 on the tips to the feathers much exaggerated. 



This tropical West- African form , which seems to be very 

 rare in collections, differs from its southern and eastern 

 congeners by its entirely black head and the white shoulder- 

 patch occupying the lesser and median wing-coverts only, 

 leaving the greater ones entirely black. 



The synonymy of the Traquet Commandeur , which has 

 to bear the name of 



Thamnolaea nigra (Vieill.) , 



will be as follows: 



Oenanthe nigra, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. XXI, p. 

 431 (1818). 



Notes from ttie Lieyden JVKaseutxi , "Vol. XIV. 



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