2 20 Elliot on Pitta g-niinitiiia. FJ^'V 



birds, all his specimens having come from Borneo. We must 

 therefore conclude that the bird Temminck received was of the 

 usual style of tliis Pitta from that island. Now where did the 

 bird figured and described in the 'Planches Colorizes' come from .^ 



Huet, the artist who drew plate 506, was a Frenchman, and, I 

 believe, was employed in the Jardin des Plantes, as his son is 

 today, and lived in Paris. It may be that he took as the original 

 of his painting a specimen in the Paris Museum (as was done in 

 some instances by Prcitre, another of Temminck's draughtsmen), 

 no one at the time supposing there were two styles, and that this 

 one happened to be the bird with the narrow frontal band ; and 

 that Temminck, also not perceiving any difierence, wrote his 

 description in accordance with his plate. That he did not dis- 

 cover any difference need not surprise any one ; as for over sixty 

 years, during which time this plate has been published, no orni- 

 thologist seems to have noticed the discrepancy that has existed 

 between this figure and the Bornean bird, although the species 

 has been the subject at various times of considerable discussion. 



Nine years after this plate was published, Eyton, in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society, 1839, P- ^^4, described the 

 bird from 'Malaya' ( !) as Pitta coccinea. His description is 

 as follows : "Pitta coccinea. P. occipite, nuchd, corporeque 

 subtus coccineis ; alls, dorso, caudd, strigtlque utrinque nuchte, 

 cyaneis ; gutture ferrugineis ; lateribus capitis, pedibus, rostroque 

 atris. Long. corp. 8 unc. ; rostrum, f unc. ; tarsi, i^ unc." It 

 will be noticed that there is no reference whatever to the black 

 frontal band, and his description will answer as well for the 

 Bornean as for the Malaccan bird. Beyond Malaya, he gives no 

 locality, but we may presume he had the bird with the narrow 

 black front. I do not know what became of his type. The 

 consequence of all this is, that the Sumatra and Malayan bird 

 having been described and figured by Temminck as Pitta gra- 

 7tatina^ erroneously given as from Borneo, must bear that name, 

 of which Pitta coccinea E\ton, is a synonym, and the Bornean 

 bird is without a name, as no other appellation has ever been 

 given to it. It makes no difterence what n:ime Temminck may 

 have attached to the specimens from Borneo in the Leyden Mu- 

 seum, for, as he never described nor figined those birds, his appel- 

 lation would be simply a manuscript one, and therefore a ?iomen 

 nudum. Gould, in his 'Birds of Asia,' Vol. V, pis. 67 and 68, 



