200 BIRDS FROM FLORES, SUMBA AND ROTTI. 



Glycyphila ocularis (part.) Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. Vol. 



IX, p. 213. 

 Plilotis limhata Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mas. Vol. IX, p. 236; 



pi. VII, fig. 2; — Butt. N. L. M. 1891, p. 214. 



Two specimens , one of which is a young bird , having 

 chin, cheeks and a moustachial streak yellow instead of 

 ashy gray. 



Count Salvadori (op. cit. p. 324) has already pointed 

 to the identity of S. Miiller's Meliphaga limhata with 

 Stigmatops ocularis (Gould) , and a careful comparison of 

 our eleven typical specimens of S. limhata with four S. 

 ocularis from Australia and two from Aru convinced me 

 that the first are not specifically distinct from the second, 

 though Dv, Gadow even placed them in different genera. 

 One might say that, as a rule, the throat in the speci- 

 mens from Australia is ashy brown , while it is more ashy 

 gray in the Timor specimens. There are, however, amongst 

 the first , some specimens with the throat as gray as in 

 Timor birds, and I am not able to find, either in colo- 

 ration or in size , any difference , important enough to se- 

 parate them even subspecifically. Dr. Gadow mentions as 

 P. limhata specimens from Bali , Lombok , Flores and 

 Timor, but he does not say which of these islands is the 

 habitat of the bird figured on his plate VII. The adult 

 specimen of our Sumba birds is very pale yellowish white 

 on breast , abdomen and under tail-coverts and differs in this 

 way considerably from our Timor birds as well as from 

 those from Aru and Australia , while it agrees very well 

 with Dr. Gadow's plate. Although I have no specimens from 

 Flores , Lombok or Bali with which to compare those from 

 Sumba, I feel much disposed to believe that the birds 

 from all the islands west of Timor show the same pecu- 

 liarities as our adult Sumba bird, and that, consequently, 

 the bird figured by Dr. Gadow on plate VII , fig. 2, is not 

 a Timor bird. The white, yellow-tinged breast, abdomen 

 and under tail-coverts would, if my supposition be cor- 

 rect, be the distinguishing characters of a new species, 



Notes from the Ley den IVIuseum, Vol. XIV. 



