580 ON THE DICEUEID^ AND TIIEIE AEEAJSTGEMENT [1878. 



I), andamanensis is almost a typical Buchanga. It has all the habits of the continental 

 species {teste Davison, Str. F. 1874, p. 211) ; and the tail is deeply forked, as in the common 

 Kino-Crow. A few of the erect frontal plumes being somewhat lengthened and denuded of their 

 webs can scarcely constitute a generic character ; and this is not relied on by Mr. Sharpe ; while 

 the only differentiating generic character given by him seems to be still less distinctive, namely, 

 " outer tail-feathers recurved at tip." Indeed, if a character at all, it is a family characteristic ; 

 for in all the Dicruridae there is a marked inclination in the outer pair of rectrices, when produced, 

 to recurve inwards. 



Dissemuroides edoUiformis. — For this species Mr. Sharpe has rejected Vieillot's title of 

 lophorhinns, which was adopted many years ago by Sundevall, and has been in general use ever 

 since, although he admits Le Vaillant's plate of Le Drongup (Ois. d'Afr. 173) to represent Blyth's 

 species, and on this plate and description Vieillot founded his title*. On the other hand, Mr. 

 Sharpe makes Vieillot's title [lophorhinus) a synonym of B . forficatus, a species named cristatiis 

 by Vieillot, from another of Le Vaillant's plates [t. c. 166). Le Vaillant, in his account of Le 

 Brongup, shows in what manner it differs from Le Brongo {^=B. forficatus {1^.)=B. cristatiis, 

 Vieill.), and mentions its larger dimensions and the shortness of the frontal crest as being points 

 of difference. The large size, the small frontal crest, and the absence of rackets make the 

 identification of Z). lojjJwrhinus with this peculiar Ceylonese species a matter of certainty. And 

 Ibis, 1878, an examination of Le Vaillant's type specimen, labelled Le Brongup, at Leyden, enabled me some 

 years ago to assert its identity (Ibis, 1867, p. 468) f . This is a second instance in this family 

 where Mr. Sharpe appears to have rather hastily rejected the nomenclature adopted by previous 

 writers. 



B. Jophorhinus is an aberrant form of the genus Bissemurus. It is, if the term may be used, 

 a transition species. If the shafts of the outer pair of rectrices were denuded for part of their 

 length, and only webbed at their extremity, it would be a typical Bissemurus. Unless the 

 structure of the outer pair of rectrices be taken into account, the bu-d is difficult to distinguish 

 from B. malaharicus, ex Ceylon and Malabar. In the key to the species of Bissemuroides, 

 B. lophorhinus (sive edoUiformis) is stated to be smaller than B. andamanensis, whereas it is 

 larger. 



The structure of B. andamanensis and B. lophorhinus being so dissimilar, I cannot concur in 

 associating them together, much less in forming for their reception a separate genus ; and it seems 

 preferable, and more consistent with their peculiarities of structure, to place the first species under 

 Buchanga, the last under Bissemurus, and to reject the generic title Bissemuroides altogether. 



Bicranostreptus megarhynchus. — This single species, the type of Reichenbach's genus, does 

 not possess any one character sufficient to remove it from the genus Bissemurus. Mr. Sharpe 

 admits Bicranostreptus as a good genus on the strength of the extravagant length of the outer 

 tail-feathers. In both Bhringa and Bissemurus the outer tail-feathers are extravagantly long, in 



* Vieillot gave (N. D. d'H. N. vol. ix.) Latin titles to all the nine species of Bicruri figured and described b)' Le 

 VaOlant (Ois. d'Afr. iv.) ; but the number of the plate on which Le Drongup is figured ia the only one he does not quote. 

 It is manifest by the context that Vieillot merely reproduced Le Vaillant's descriptive words ; indeed he uses Le Vaillant's 

 very ■words; and under the word Drongup (t. c. p. 589) the reader is referred to Le Drongo drongup, Y.=D. lopJiorhinus. 

 Elsewhere and later (Enc. Method, p. 752) Vieillot quoted Le VaiHant's plate, 



t [Antea, p. 50.— Ed.] 



