'S92j Eli.IOT on Pitta oraiiatind . 



219 



tended that the two lunns were not specifically distinct, while, 

 per contra, a considerable number of very competent ornitholo- 

 gists have retained them in their writings as two species. The 

 main diHerence, and the one upon which the separation of the 

 two forms must chiefly depend, is the width of the black frontal 

 band, this in the Bornean bird extending across the top of the 

 head from a line drawn behind the eyes, in the Sumatran and 

 Malayan form only to a line drawn before the eyes, the black not 

 reaching the orbit. Other slight differences in the color of the 

 plumage also exist, but these it is not necessary to discuss at 

 present. The first point that requires to be considered is the 

 nomenclature. Temminck states (Plan. Col., text to pi. 506) 

 that two specimens were brought to Leyden from Borneo by M. 

 Diard, and Schlegel in the Museum des Pays-Bas, Pitta, 1863, p. 

 5, enumerates these as adult females from Pontianak, Borneo. 

 There would seem therefore to be no doubt that Temminck had 

 two Bornean specimens before him. But in his 'Planches Colo- 

 rizes' he neither figures nor describes the bird that all authors 

 have considered as from Borneo, and have called Pitta grana- 

 tina^ but on the contrary his plate represents, and his text 

 describes, the Sumatran and Malaccan bird with the narrow black 

 frontal band not extending back of a line drawn in front of the 

 eyes, in fact, as represented in his figure, not reaching as far as 

 the eye. His description of this part is as follows: "</?^ noir 

 profond cotivre le fronts entoure le bee et Vorbite des yeux^ et 

 forme au-dessus de cet organe^ 7in large sourcil" This is not 

 a character of the Bornean bird, for it has no superciliary stripe, 

 the whole top of the head between the eyes being black, while 

 the Sumatran and Malayan form does possess a black line above 

 the eye. 



Now it might naturally at first be supposed from this that both 

 styles of frontal bands occur in Bornean examples of this Pitta, 

 and that Temminck had received some with the narrow black 

 line. But we must decline to accept this view of the case, 

 because Schlegel, who was very quick to detect such differences 

 in examples of nearly related specific forms, figures in his work, 

 'De Vogels van Nederlandsch Indie' (Pitta, pi. 5, fig. 3), the 

 Bornean bird with the front half of the head black, and neither in 

 that work nor in the 'Museum des Pays-Bas,' 1863 and 1874, 

 Pitta, does he make any reference to the Sumatran and Malayan 



