48 Mr. W. B. Ogilvie-Grant on the Genus Platalea. 



ment appears to fall short of the question, which is, Were 

 Sonnerat's birds obtained in Luzon or Africa ? Now, grant- 

 ing that the occurrence of Spoonbills in the Philippines 

 should have been somewhat unexpected, as no specimen had 

 been recorded since Sonnerat's time (his examples were said 

 to have been obtained in Luzon before the year 1776), there 

 is no apparent reason why previous writers should have been 

 mistaken in identifying Sonnerat's species with the African 

 and Madagascar bird. After a careful investigation of the 

 question, one can only agree with Prof. Schlegel's decided 

 opinion {' Mus. Pays-Bas, Ciconice' p. 22) that there can be 

 hardly a doubt that Sonnerat described his Spalule blanche 

 and Spatule hupee from a young and an adult specimen of the 

 so-called P. tenuirostris. That M. Baer's bird should differ 

 from this species, as stated by M. Oustalet, is a further argu- 

 ment in favour of this view, and his bird most probably 

 belonged to P. minor. 



I have, unfortunately, been unable to examine any speci- 

 mens of Spoonbills from Luzon. 



Platalea melanorhyncha, Beich. (Plate I. figs. 1, 1a, 

 4, & 5.) 



This species is apparently confined to the Australian con- 

 tinent, though one or two straggling instances have been 

 recorded, with more or less certainty, of its occurrence in 

 New Zealand, and there is a fully adult specimen from Timor 

 in the Leyden Museum, presented by Governor Lansberge. 

 It is to be distinguished from the following species by several 

 characters, as already shown in the Key ; but of course these 

 distinctions are only clearly marked in nearly mature or 

 adult specimens ; and young and immature Australian spe- 

 cimens might be easily confounded with specimens of P. in- 

 termedia, though never with P. tninor, in which the nearly 

 feathered throat is always a strongly marked character. Yet 

 the obtusely truncate shape of the spatule will, I believe, 

 always serve to distinguish this species horn P. intermedia 

 with its rounded spatule. 



Char. — Adult c? ^ ? . Naked skin of forehead and throat 



