114 ON BIRDS EECEXTLT OBSERVED OR OBTAINED [1872. 



P.Z.S.lsn, broadly ban-ed witli wliito, and very much rounded, the outer rectrices being more than an inch 

 ^' " ■ and a half shorter than the middle. The total length of the skin of the female was 10| inches, 

 of the wing 6. 



1872. 



A. M. X. II. Description of a new Species of 'Poizana from the Ilimahnjas. By ARTura, Viscount Waldex, 

 6cr.4,vol.ix. p 2 s. [From the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' ser. 4, vol. ix., Jan. 1872.] 



POKZAXA BICOLOK, n. Sp. 



Chin gi-eyish white, passing into pure grey on the throat ; entu'c head, throat, neck, breast, 

 abdomen, flanks, and thigh-coverts ashy grey ; nape, back, uropygium, shoulder-coverts, and 

 scapulars ferruginous olive ; tail, upper and lower tail-coverts dark slate-colour, almost black ; 

 quills above ash-coloured, washed with light brown, underneath pale brown ; under wing-coverts- 

 jiale bro\A'n tinged with ashy ; shoulder edge white, quill-shafts underneath white ; bill black at 

 the tip, dark green at base. "Wing 4"50 inches; tarsus 1'50; middle toe 1"50 ; hallux 0'37, 

 nails not included; bill from gape 1'12, from forehead 0"87. 



This well-marked and haudsome Rail was shot at Rungbee, Darjeeling. 



Ibis, 1872, On Birds recently observed or obtained in the Island of Xegros, Philippines. By Artuub, Viscount 

 P-'^^- Walden, P.Z.S., and Edg.\e Leopold Lay.uid, F.Z.S. [From 'The Ibis,' April 1872, 



Plates IV.- VI. in Oi'ig.'] 



The Philippine Islands supplied the materials for the earliest memoir on exotic birds that has 

 come down to us, written by the Moravian Jesuit, Camel, in 1703 (Phil. Trans, vol. xxiii.). From 

 examples collected in the Philippine archipelago by Poivre and by Sonnerat, descriptions of many 

 of the oldest species in our books were taken. Still, even at the present time, our knowledge of 

 Philippine ornithology continues to be of the most elementary character, only 193 species being 

 noted (v. Martens, J. fiir O. 1866) as known to inhabit the large and diversified ai'ea contained 

 within the limits of the archipelago — an area which occupies an estimated surface of 11U,0UU 

 square miles of dry land. "When we consider the favourable geographical position of these 

 islands (closely connected with Borneo on the S.W., with Celebes on the S., and the Moluccas on 

 the S.8.E., and lying in the direct tract of the migrants from north-eastern and eastern Asia), the 

 Ibis, 1872, varied physical characters of the islands themselves, their mountainous regions covered with vast 

 p. 04. unexplored forest, their broad tracts of open country devoid of all cultivation, the few ornith- 

 ologists who have visited the archipelago (not exceeding eight in number) since the time of 

 Sonnerat (1771), and that only three or four points were touched by them (Manilla, Antigua, 



