from the Papuan Region. 415 



I am inclined to consider Guillemard's opinion (P. Z. S. 1885, 

 p. 628) as the right one on the point, that adult males have 

 always a blue tail, adult females always a brown one ; whereas 

 Guillemard is doubtless wrong in declaring that young males 

 too have a brown tail, which latter point is clearly disproved 

 by specimens collected by myself and now in the Dresden Mu- 

 seum. But I also believe that the sexes of blue-tailed speci- 

 mens, labelled as females, occurring likewise in my collection, 

 may have been wrongly determined. Future collectors ought 

 to put this point beyond any doubt. 



8. Sauromarptis gaudichaudi aruensis, subsp. nov. 



I have mentioned (Zeitschr. fur ges. Orn. 1884, p. 276) a 

 specimen from the Am Islands as varying from S. gaudi- 

 chaudi, which variation Salvadori {op. cit. Suppl. i. p. 59) con- 

 sidered to be but an individual one. I have consequently 

 again compared the six specimens from Aru in the Dresden 

 Museum with S. gaudichaudi from elsewhere, and have dis- 

 covered that all the specimens from Aru have the white patch 

 on the back, which I have described in S. kubaryi, though 

 they are in all other respects similar to S. gaudichaudi. 

 This induces me to separate the Aru bird as subsp. aruensis. 

 I am not able, as yet, to understand the blue feathers on the 

 sides of the head of the one Aru specimen described by myself 

 (/. c), but future collections from there will probably settle 

 this also. 



9. Melidora macrorhina (Less.). 



A pair from South-east New Guinea (Goldie) have much 

 green on the webs of the tail- and wing-feathers, very con- 

 spicuous in certain lights ; the spots on the upperside of the 

 body, too, are greenish. Salvadori (Orn. Pap. i. p. 500) does 

 not mention this character in his diagnosis, but Sharpe notes 

 it in his description of his M. collaris from South New Guinea 

 (J. Proc. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 314). Ramsay, again, does not 

 allude to it in the description of his M. goldiei from the same 

 region (Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, i. p. 389). Salvadori 

 {pp. cit. i. p. 502, and iii. p. 527) considers the bird from the 

 south to be identical with that from the north of New 



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