1877.] DESCEIBED BY ME. A. 0. HUJVIE. 507 



B. moniligcr, Layard, from P.javcnsis, Horsf. apud Blyth (ncc Ilorsf., sed=P. steUatiis, Gould, 

 =B. stictopterus. Cab.), and from B. affinis, remarks: — "the bright white spots on the wings" 

 (of B. moniligcr) " distingiiish it as readily from B. affims." Indeed it is the uniform chestnut- 

 coloured unspotted wing which at once distinguishes B. affinis, Blyth (when in rufous plumage), 

 from both B. moniliger, Layard, ex Ceylon, and B.Javensis, Horsf. apud Blyth, ex Malacca, nee 

 Horsf. It is essential to the argument to bear in mind that the larger of the two Malaccan forms 

 (I am excluding B. mmtvs) is the bird always referred to as B. javensis, Horsf., by Blyth, except 

 where he quotes Horsfield's plate (Zool. Res. Java), and that Blyth, like every one else, until 

 Dr. Cabanis discriminated and clearly described the Malaccan species (for Mr. Gould's diagnosis 

 is too vague, and he gave Java as the habitat), assumed the latter to belong to the same species 

 as the Javan bird. The Malaccan bird, B. steUatus=B. stictopterus, has spotted wing-coverts in 

 both its rufous and brown phases of plumage ( ? d1); and from Mr. Blanford's clear 

 descriptive remarks, it is evidently the species identified by him in Mr. Hume's museum as be- 

 longing to B. affinis, Blyth. It is a bird of which examples occur in almost every Malaccan 

 collection of any importance, either in the bright rufous or in the brown phase of plumage, while 

 B. affinis does not appear to be so common. The difference in the width of the gape noted by 

 Mr. Blanford is just the difference observable between the gape of P. javensis, apud Blyth, ex 

 Malacca ( = P. stellatus, Gould), and B. affinis, Blyth. 



Mr. Blanford inadvertently makes a slip when lie states (p. 253) that " the fragments of two Ibis, 1877, 

 specimens of Batrachostomus, from Darjeeling, briefly described by Mr. Blyth in 1849 (J. A. S. B. P" • 

 xviii. p. 806), were at first referred by him to B. affinis ; but subsequently, in his ' Catalogue of 

 the Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic Society,' p. 31, he ascribed them to ' a nearly allied but 

 distinct species.'" The facts are exactly the reverse. Mr. Blyth announced the receipt of the 

 fragments from Darjeeling and his opinion, above qaoteA, first, and not "subsequently," in the 

 Catalogue. Afterwards, in his " Supplemental note to the Catalogue of the Birds in the Asiatic 

 Society's Museum " (J. A. S. B. 1849, p. 806. no. 405, paper quoted by Mr. Blanford), no. 405, 

 being the number under which B. affinis stands in the ' Catalogue,' Mr. Blyth published his 

 matured opinion along with a description of the two specimens. His words are, " two specimens 

 of what we now consider to be the young of this species " {B. affinis). If this were not a slip, 

 Mr. Blanford's version would deprive me of the support of one of the many facts which led me 

 to the inference that B. castaneus, Hume,=i?. affinis, Blyth. Mr. Blyth's last-published opinion 

 about B. affinis is contained in a footnote to page 83 (B. Burma), where he alludes to B. affinis 

 being " probably Otothrix hodgsoni, G. R. Gray, if the two really differ." Malaccan examples of 

 B. affinis, in grey and brown spotted dress, are difficult to distinguish from the type of 0. hodgsoni ; 

 but I did not venture to identify (B. Burma, no. 102) Gray's species with B. affinis and 

 B. castaneus in the face of Mr. Hume's positive statement (Str. F. ii. p. 349) that " Mr. Hodgson's 

 bird " (type of 0. hodgsoni) " was certainly an adult female by dissection ; " for Lieutenant W. 

 Eamsay (B. Burma, no. 162) had determined by dissection that the sex of a species of Batrachosto- 

 mus, ex Burma, hardly differing from 0. hodgsoni, was a male. This statement Mr. Hume has now 

 reduced to " It is true, when I formerly wrote, I thought it (relying upon what Hodgson recorded) 

 probable that hodgsoni was the female " (Str. F. iv. p. 378). The certainty of the fact arrived at 

 by Mr. Hodgson after dissection, as first stated by Hume, being thus minimized to only a proba- I^is, 1877, 



