THE PARADISE FLYCATCHERS OF JAPAN AND KOREA. 



By Pierre Louis Jouy, 



INTRODUCTION. 



Shortly before his death in 1894 Mr. Jouy, believing that he would 

 be unable to finish his report on the magnificent series of birds which 

 he had collected in Korea during his residence there, requested me to 

 work up the collection, placing his notebooks and memoranda in my 

 hands for the purpose. Of finished manuscript he left veiy little, 

 but the fragment here published shows how elaborate his plan for the 

 work was and how great a loss the ornithology of the East suffered 

 by his death. It had always been my intention to make good my 

 promise to my lamented friend, but press of work in other branches 

 of zoology has prevented me. The scope he had planned for the 

 work has made it impossible for nie to accomplish the task, and I 

 have been unwilling to publish a hurried list of the species instead of 

 the elaborate monograph I had planned as a memorial to him. 

 Recent developments make it desirable to place on record the follow- 

 ing notes on the paradise flycatchers of Japan and Korea, which 

 were among the papers entrusted to my care. They are herewith 

 presented in the shape he left them. — Leonhard Stejneger. 



DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES. 



In comparing a series of skins of the long-tailed flycatchers from 

 Nagasaki, Tsushima, and Korea with specimens from the main 

 island of Japan and Hongkong it was at once evident that there 

 were two forms — one, the Kiushiu-Korean bird, being much darker 

 and richer in color, with a black tail, while the specimens from Fuji 

 Yama and Hongkong are of a different maroon on the back, the lower 

 breast is distinctly ashy, and the tail is dark brown; the tail is, 

 moreover, of a different form, being slightly and evenly graduated, 

 while in the other bird the graduation is abrupt from the fourth to 

 the fifth rectrix, the difference in length between the lateral feather 

 and the fifth averaging 33 mm., while the corresponding difference 

 in the Hondo bird is only 15 mm. Swinhoe in the Ibis for 1861 

 (p. 39), pointed out the differences, describing the back of the Hong- 

 kong form as "of a burnished pink-purple," which corresponds 

 exactly with the color of the specimens from the main island of 

 Japan. As the British Museum at that time had no Japanese speci- 

 mens for comparison, Mr. Swinhoe's specimens from Hongkong and 



Proceedings U.S. National Museum, Vol. 37— No. 1721. 



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