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RARE SPECIES OF CYANOCORAX. 8) 
Note on a Rare Species of Cyanocorax-——C. heilprini. 
(PuatE I. Corvide.) 
AMONG the species of Cyanocorax in this Museum from the XIIIth Lord 
Derby’s Collection, there is one from the Rio Negro, purchased from Warwick 
in 1848. As it differs very distinctly from all the species enumerated by 
Dr. Sharpe in the “Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,” Vol. iii. 
(1877), its identification was for a time a matter of some doubt. On search- 
ing the literature of the group, however, we found that a species had been 
described by Gentry (Proc. Phil. Acad., 1885, p. 90) under the name of 
Cyanocorax heilprint. 
Gentry’s specimen was also from the Rio Negro, and forms one of the 
well-known Wilson Collection in the Philadelphia Academy, and his descrip- 
tion fits our specimen very well. The following are the characters of our 
example :— 
General colour above, from nape to rump, viewed with the eye between 
the light and the bird, purplish-blue ; but with the bird between the light 
and the eye, light brown ; front of head from a line directly behind the eye, 
the sides of the head and neck, black ; a dark purplish-blue line margins the 
black region, extending from eye to eye over the occiput ; frontal plumes 
bristly and recurved ; spot of purplish-blue at base of lower mandible ; crown, 
occiput, and hind-neck lilac, washed on its hinder part with deeper blue ; 
breast and abdomen deep purplish-blue when viewed with the eye between 
the light and the bird, and greyish-brown when the bird is between the light 
and the eye; under tail-coverts and vent white; tail concolorous with the 
back above ; underside brown and broadly tipped with white ; thighs of the 
same colour as the rump, instead of “ashy” as in the Type; bill and legs 
black. Length, 14 inches; wing, 6°75; tail, 7; tarsus, 1°75. 
Mr. Whitmer Stone, in cataloguing the species of Corvide in the Phila- 
delphia Academy (Proc. Phil. Acad., 1891, p. 443) suggests that the species, 
which at that time was only known from the Type, might possibly be a 
natural hybrid between C. cyanomelus and C. cyanopogon or C. cayanus. 
The specimen in the Liverpool Museum is apparently the only one known 
besides the Type ; but as it is unlikely that there should be two hybrids 
exhibiting exactly the same characters, we are of opinion that C. heilprini 
must be considered a good species. 
Notes on some Marine Invertebrates from Hilbre 
Island. 
THE various very low tides of the year, when the ebb reaches as much as 
25 feet or more, are usually taken advantage of to secure additions to our 
local marine collections. During those at the end of March last, various 
specimens were obtained from Hilbre Island, at the mouth of the Dee, by 
Mr. Clubb and Mr. Laverock, Assistants in the Museum. 
In addition to a number of the commoner species, several rare and very 
interesting forms were found. Hilbre is justly celebrated for the richness of 
its Nudibranch Fauna, and, on this occasion, nine species of this interesting 
group were obtained, among them being two which have only been found 
there at long intervals, viz., Archidoris tuberculata and Tritonia hombergi—the 
latter not having been recorded from this locality since 1886. Some of the 
commoner species were transferred alive to the Museum Aquarium, where they 
