108 Count T. Salvador! on 



the Arfak Mountains^ I had the opportunity of comparing it 

 with a specimen of S. saiurata from Java, received from 

 Mr. Franck, of Amsterdam, in 184-7, and preserved, in the 

 Zoological Museum of Turin, and I still thought that they 

 belonged to two different species. 



Lastly, when Dr. Guillemard had a third specimen of the 

 New-Guinea bird, he put it down (P. Z. S. 1885, p. 665) as 

 *S. rosenheryi, apparently without the least idea that it could 

 be the same as 8. saturata. 



Consequently it was a great surprise to me to find, first 

 in 'The Ibis' (1887, p. 283), and then in the recent work, 

 'The Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidse/ 

 p. 506, that the two birds are considered by Mr. Seebohm 

 specifically identical. 



On a previous occasion (Ibis, 1886, p. 128), in "A Review 

 of the Species of the Genus Scolopaxj" Mr. Seebohm admits 

 the Scolopax rosenbergi as distinct from -S^. saturata, but after- 

 wards (Ibis, 1887, p. 283) he tells us that at the time he 

 wrote his paper on the genus Scolopax he had not had the 

 opportunity of comparing specimens of S. rosenbergi from 

 New Guinea with those of S. saiurata from Java, and that 

 when that opportunity presented itself he found " them to 

 be identical." It seems that in his last work Mr, Seebohm 

 has slightly modified his opinion, as, instead of being so posi- 

 tive as before, he is content to state that the " two birds 

 seem to be specifically identical." Thus it appears that he 

 was not quite sure of the identity ; and if so, it seems that it 

 would have been more safe not to lump together two birds 

 which, when carefully examined by others, had been recog- 

 nized as specifically distinct. 



Mr. Seebohm, to meet the serious objection arising from 

 the very peculiar distribution of Scolopax saturata when taken, 

 as he does, to be the same as S. rosenbergi, which is only 

 known from the Arfak Mountains in Western New Guinea, 

 supposes the probability of the bird living also " in the inter- 

 vening islands''''^, or that it may '' be only a winter visitor 



* lu one of the groups of the intervening islands, in that of Obi, lives 

 ■Scolopax )-ochusseni, Schleg., a very distinct species. 



