1 88 Elliot on the Genus Pitta. [April 



What the type of Pitta may be is of no consequence what- 

 ever at the pi'esent day ; but by no process of elimination that I 

 know, either of the A. O. U., or any other Code, can a genus 

 which has been proposed to include four short-tailed birds (as 

 is the case with Dr. Stejneger) or three (as is the case with 

 Volume IV from which I quote of the 'Planches Enluminees'), 

 all generically alike, be narrowed down to compel the selection of 

 one species only, when no genera have been accepted for the 

 reception of any of the others. Under such circumstances it is 

 usual, I contend, (no especial species having been indicated by 

 the author of the genus) to select the one first mentioned, which 

 in both works cited is PI. 89, Brieve des Philippines, Pitta 

 sordida P. L. S. Miiller, as given in my paper on the genus 

 Pitta, and (if he is unwilling to accept this species) I can see 

 no reason whatever why Dr. Stejneger should ignore plates 257 

 and 258, the Pitta moluccensis Miiller and Pitta coronata Miiller 

 (generically the same as Edwards's species on plate 324 of his 

 work), both given in the volume he cites, in order to pick out 

 a bird not figured by Buffon at all, and not even mentioned in 

 the standard work from which I have quoted. 



As to Montbeillard being the author of the volume from 

 which Dr. Stejneger quotes, he is equally so in the one to which 

 I have made reference, and his name in conjunction with Buffon 

 is given as co-author of the 'Planches Enluminees,' and it was nat- 

 ural for Vieillot to mention him, but we should by no manner of 

 means imagine that by so doing he denied to Buffon any author- 

 ship in the work; but, by giving in the 'Analyse' Buffon's Breves 

 as the species he intended to be contained in his genus Pitta, he 

 meant those included in the 'Planches Enluminees' and there fig- 

 ured, and not Edwards's species of which Buffon makes no men- 

 tion in his completed edition. 



In conclusion I would point out the fact that, in the 'Dic- 

 tionnaire,' Vieillot refers to the complete edition of the 'Histoire 

 Naturelle des Oiseaux,' 1770-1786, and enumerates only as found 

 in Buffon's work the four species represented on plates 89, 257, 

 258 and 355, the last being Vieillot's Br&ve azurine, and 

 although he gives in his list with others not in the 'Planches 

 Enluminees,' the Pr&ve de Ceylon as figured on plate 324 of 

 Edwards's 'Birds,' he nowhere refers to it as belonging to the 

 species he included in his genus Pitta, viz. Buffon's Breves, 



