186 ARTAMIA 
Xenopirostris dami. 
Xenopirostris damii, Schl. Ned. Tijdschr. iii. p. 82 (1866) Madagascar ; 
Bartlett P. Z. §., 1875, p. 66 S.H. Madagascar ; Milne Edw. and 
Grand. Hist. Madag. Ois. i. p. 431, pls. 170, 170a, figs. 3, 170s, 
fig. 3 (1885); Gadow, Cat. B. M. viii. p. 110 (1883); Sibree, Ibis, 
1891, p. 440; Shelley, B. Afr. i. No. 651 (1896); Sharpe, Handl. 
B. iv. p. 262 (1903). 
Vanga albifrons, Pollen, Ned. Tijdschr. iii. p. 83 (1866, ¢ ) Madagascar. 
Adult male. Top and sides of head, hind neck and lesser wing-coverts 
black, with a green gloss; remainder of wings, back and tail slate-colour, 
with a few white feathers on the rump; entire underparts and sides of 
neck white; axillaries and under wing-coverts white, under surface of quills 
black. ‘Iris brown ; bill black ; feet lead-colour’”’ (Van Dam). Total 
length 7:4 inches, culmen 1:0, wing 4°35, tail 3-0, tarsus 0°95. 
“Immature male,” type of V. albifrons. Forehead, sides of head and 
neck and the entire underparts white, with a tinge of ochre on the breast 
and under tail-coverts ; feathers round the eye, and upper part of ear-coverts 
shading into the glossy greenish black of the crown and nape; remainder 
of the upper parts ashy grey. Wing 4:5 inches. 
Van Dam’s Vanga is confined to Madagascar. 
The original specimens were discovered by Pollen and Van 
Dam at Ambarohana in north-east Madagascar. Besides 
these, the only specimens known to Milne Edwards and 
Grandidier, when they published the article upon this species 
in their great work on Madagascar, were, one in the Paris 
Museum, procured by Lantz, and five in the Museum of the 
Island of Reunion. They remark that although Pollen 
records it as a solitary bird, Lantz found it in parties of from 
six to eight. In habits it is apparently very like the other 
members of the genus and is distributed over the entire island, 
for Mr. E. Bartlett received two adults and a young bird 
collected by Mr. Waters in south-east Madagascar. 
Genus II. ARTAMTA., 
With the exception of the greyish-blue bill, which is slighter and closes 
entirely throughout its length, the genus closely resembles Xenopirostris in 
all its other characters. 
