( 524 ) 

 219. Loria loriae Salvad. 



Loria loriae Salvador!, Ami. Mux. Getiova, ser. 2 ; vol. xiv. p. 151 (1884 — Moroka district, Owen 

 Stanley Mountains). 



8 c? ad., 2 c? jnn., 4 c? jnv., 8 ? ad., 2 ? jnn. ; Mt. Goliath, uot less than 5000 ft., 

 January and Febrnary 1911. (Nos. 6090, 5114, 5125, 5149, 5234, 5256, 5272,5283, 

 5291, 5305, 5316, 5327, 5328, 5335, 5330, 5337, 5359, 5372, 5401, 5402, 5430, 5456, 

 5457, 5467, A. S. Meek Coll.) 



cJ ad. : " Iris dark brown ; bill and feet black." (Females similar.) 



^^ [220. Xanthomelus aureus ardens D'Alb. & Salvad. 



Xaiithomehis aniens D'Albertis and Salvador!, Ann. Mu«. Civ. Geiiova xiv. p. 113 (1879 — Fly 

 River) ; van Oort, Xom Guinea ix., Zool. i. p. 100, pi. iii. (1909 — Sabang). 



Meek failed to secure this bird either on the Oetakwa, Setekwa, or Eilanden 

 Rivers. Up to the year 1907 — so for twenty-eight years — this very fine form was 

 only known from the mutilated type, a native skin wanting the whole under-surface 

 throat and cheeks, and the perfect young male killed by D'Albertis. In 1907 

 Dr. H. A. Lorentz, when exploring the Noord River in S.W. Dutch New Guinea, 

 was able to collect two adult males, which at once showed by their red (not black) 

 cheeks and the absence of the black on the throat that the form was much more 

 distinct from X. aureus aureus than we had hitherto thought. In 1910-11 the 

 -£• 0. U. Expedition under Mr. Goodfellow procured seven specimens on the 

 Stt ^^f" /cWi Waltak w a River, an affluent — like the Setekwa — of tiie Oetakwa River. Of these 

 g^ /^^ .29/ythTee were adult males, one aa adult female, and three immature males. 



The adult male, which on the uj)perside agrees with the type, has the 

 secondaries more narrowly (half-inch) tipped with black and a single black spot at 

 the end of the longest tertial ; the second male lias the two longest tertials three- 

 parts black and the secondaries broadly tipped with black ; but the third male, 

 while having the secondaries and tertials as in No. 1, has black lores and a black 

 patch on each side of the throat, and the bill also is larger and blacker. 



The male of A', a. ardens differs from aureus aureus by the more slender 

 and not blackish bill by the head and mantle being fiery red instead of orange, 

 and by having all the secondaries broadly tipped with black, instead of a n.arrow 

 black terminal line on the outer three, or narrow black tips only to the outer 

 four or five ; the throat is yellow and the lores and cheeks fiery red instead of deep 

 black. The females and young males differ in being much more olivaceous grey- 

 brown, not deep umber-brown on the upperside ; the throat is white cinnamon-buff 

 and the cheeks and sides of neck greyish earth-brown, instead of pale and dark 

 umber-brown ; on the upper breast the transverse Innulated bands are much leas 

 pronounced or entirely absent instead of being strongly marked. 



The black lores and throat-patches in the third adult male of Mr. Goodfellow 

 show that 1 was quite right in placing X ardens as a subspecies of A', aureus aureus. 

 I feel that the followers of the more modern systems of nomenclature must make a 

 stand against the tendency of certain authors to continue to treat as species all the 

 forms of fine brilliant families like the Prtraf//se2V«(; and only to treat allied forms 

 of inconspicuous families as subspecies. The genus Xanthomelus has not yet been 

 found in German New Guinea nor in the North Coast Region. The figure of the 

 adult male of A', a. ardens in iSharjje's Monoyraph of the Paradiseidae is entirely 

 fictitious as regards the underside. — Walter Rothschild.'] 



