of New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. 137 



Sir Henry Parkes^ C.M.G. &c., our library has lately been 

 enriched by the presentation by the Government of New 

 South Wales of the first three volumes of the ' Proceedings 

 of the Linnean Society of New South Wales/ which we have 

 long endeavoured to procure, but hitherto in vain. 



We are now enabled to criticise some of the remarks of 

 Mr. E. P. Ramsay, the curator of the Australian Museum, 

 in that Journal, on the birds of the New Hebrides ; and we 

 commence Avith 



Merula albifrons, Ramsay, Pr. L. S. N. S. W. vol. iii. 

 p. 336, from Erromanga. 



We have not had an opportunity of seeing a skin of this 

 bird; but in spite of Mr. Ramsay's stating that he has com- 

 pared it with an M. pritzbueri^, we cannot help thinking 

 the two are identioal, and that what he has taken for a 

 discoloration of the '' white " on the head, neck, and chest 

 by the alcohol in which the specimen was placed, is in 

 reality the proper colour, and that the '' pure white feathers 

 on the chest,'' and the " few white-tipped feathers on the 

 abdomen,'' indicate that the typical example was suffering 

 from albinism. 



In very old specimens of our M. pritzbueri the colour fades 

 out to nearly white. Further, we know that this species ranges 

 to Tanna, whence L. L. brought the palest-capped bird we have 

 yet seen. Now Tanna is in full sight of, and very near to, 

 Erromanga : what more likely than that the species should 

 extend thither? though proximity is not a sure cause, as 

 witness the fact that this bird is not found either on New 

 Caledonia or the still nearer island. Mare, being re- 

 placed on the former by M. xanthopus, Forst., on the latter 

 by M. maraensis, Layard & Tristram. Another thing also 

 strikes us. Mr. Ramsay identifies an Erythrura sent from 

 Erromanga as E. cyaneovirens, Peale. This latter is a Samoan 

 species, and, for aught we yet know, confined to that group 

 of islands. Has Mr. Ramsay not mistaken it for our E. 

 cyaneifrons ? which also is found, in Tanna, though, like the 



* Misprinted " pritzbuesi " by Mr. Ramsay. 



