Vol.X 



,°S^ ] Stejneger on the Genus Pitta. 1$-? 



simply querying the identification of Button's plates. But the 

 figures in question are too well made to justify such a proceeding. 

 There can be no doubt that Edwards' pi. 324 faithfully repro- 

 duces the common Indian species. Sclater admits this by adopt- 

 ing the name, but he adds Turdus coronatus Muller to the 

 synonyms, though with a query. This is unnecessary, for 

 nothing can be more certain than the fact that PI. Enl. 258 

 represents a bird with the whole head, including the throat, 

 black. With the exception of the absence of red on the belly 

 and under tail-coverts the latter plate agrees exactly with Tem- 

 minck's P. irena. The fact that the red is also missing in PI. 

 Enl. 257, otherwise indistinguishable from Temminck's P. cyanop- 

 tera, makes it extremely probable that the absence of the red 

 is due to the same cause, either to age, the red being very pale 

 and dull in the young, or possibly to the manner of preservation 

 of the skins, or to fading. I may mention that I have before 

 me an undoubted adult bird of the latter in which the red is 

 almost entirely gone (U. S. Nat. Mus. no. 14,456; U. S. Expl. 

 Exp.). The difficulty arising from Button's giving the 

 habitat of no. 258 as "Bengale," while P. irena inhabits the 

 island of Timor, is easily overcome by the fact that Brisson, 

 in describing the same specimen, says that it came from the 

 Moluccas, and as a matter of fact, Sclater does not query the 

 pertinancy of Brisson's description. Oates (Bds. Br. Ind., II, 

 1890, p. 392) seems to accept the identification of PI. Enl. no. 

 257, but he gets away from Midler's name P. moluccensis, 

 because it "conveys an erroneous impression of this bird's habi- 

 tat." Apart from the unsound principle involved in allowing 

 the rejection of a name even on such a ground, there is another 

 reason for disagreeing with him, viz., that it appears that those 

 older authors did not always restrict the name Moluccan Islands 

 to only those which are so called to-day. 



Finally, Mr. Elliot in his paper alludes to the genus ' Coraco- 

 pitta.' The fate of the name of this genus is strange indeed ! I 

 have been accused of having "showered" new names upon the 

 ornithological public in my portion of the bird volume of the 

 'Standard Natural History,' yet my accusers do not find it worth 

 their while to go to that book for names when they need new 

 ones ; they would rather add to the 'shower' ! In the volume 



