Cj'pselidse, Caprimulgid?e, and Podargidse. 373 



from further to the south and east. They maVj therefore, with 

 advantage be named C. macrurus ambiguus, subsp. no v. This 

 is the form which has been described by Jerdon, Hume, and 

 otlier Indian ornithologists, who were not acquainted with 

 the typical form from the archipelago, as C. macrurus. 



The sjjecimens from Nepal and the lower parts of the 

 Western Himalayas, which I described in Cat. B. xvi. p. 541, 

 form also (though very variable) a peculiarly marked group, 

 and do not occur, so far as I know, in other parts. They 

 may therefore also receive a subspecific title, for which I 

 propose C. macrurus uipahnsis (from Hodgson^s MS.). 



In the ' Catalogue of Birds/ p. 594, 1 unfortunately adopted 

 the name Caprimulffus macrodipterus of Afzelius, being under 

 the impression that it had been published^as it had been quoted 

 in several books, in the year 1794. My mistake was made 

 chiefly because I misunderstood SundevalFs remark in his 

 article in the 'Ofversigt af Kongl.Vetenskaps-Akad. Forhand- 

 liugar/ vi. p. 156-163. Now I have found out that I was 

 wroQg, and I have got an exact translation of that Swedish 

 article, so that a mistake is impossible, and it becomes evident 

 that the plate in question was printed, or at least drawn, 

 but never published, nor any description of it. The name 

 C macrodipterus can therefore not be adopted, and the species 

 must again be called Macrodipteryx longipennis (Shaw): 



The genus Cosmetornis should again be united to Macro- 

 dipteryx, the second species of that genus therefore standing 

 as M.vexUlarius (Gould). The females of the two species 

 cannot possibly be separated generically ; in fact they also 

 agree in colour and markings, and differ only in size. The 

 sexual ornaments of a bird should not be taken as generic 

 characters, for one should certainly be able to find out the 

 right genus in which to place a species from a female, without 

 knowing the male. Entomological examples show the danger 

 of using male ornaments as generic characters, and the same 

 rules that apply to insects should, in my opinion, also apply to 

 birds, so far as the arrangement of groups, such as families 

 and genera, are concerned. General agreement on these 

 points, however, it is difficult to obtain, since the idea of 



