46 Canon Tristram on the 



and therefore am reluctantly compelled to suggest the name 

 oi A. mariannce, from its habitat, for this species. 



6. ACROCEPHALUS ^QUINOCTIALlSj Lath. 



Sylvia cBquinoctralis , Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 553. 



Latham's description is : — 

 " S. fusco-testacea subtus alba, uropygio pallido, rectricibus 



fuscis obsoletis. 

 '' Habitat in insula Christi natalis : magnitudiue fere Fr. do- 

 mestica : debili sed baud ingrata voce cantans.'^ 



Although I cannot further trace the type of Latham's de- 

 scription (for, alas ! it has not come under the care of Herr 

 V. Pelzeln at Vienna), yet the diagnosis is so clear, and so 

 manifestly distinct from that of any known species, that we 

 may safely assume that this was the bird noticed by Dr. Streets 

 on Christmas Island. He speaks of it as smaller than the 

 other species, and as brown, in both which remarks he cor- 

 roborates Latham. 



There can be no doubt that further research will bring 

 several additional species of this group to light. Those of 

 Washington and Christmas Islands have already been alluded 

 to; and it is scarcely probable that the Marshall, Gilbert, 

 Phoenix, and Ellice groups should be without representatives 

 of a genus found in smaller islets on either side of them. 



HI. — Notes on the Birds of Fanning Island, Pacific. 

 By H. B. Tristram, F.R.S. 



I HAVE just received a small but most interesting collection 

 of birds, made last year on Fanning Island by J. V. A.rundel, 

 Esq., who has most kindly placed them at my disposal. As 

 this island does not appear to have been visited by any natu- 

 ralist since its discovery in a.d. 1798, 1 think that a short cata- 

 logue of its avifauna may not be without interest. 



In the ' American Naturalist ' for February 1877, Dr. T. H. 

 Streets, U.S.N., gives a very careful account of the other 

 islands of the group, but makes no mention of Fanning Island 

 itself; nor does he in his paper, Bullet. U.S. Nat. Museum, 



