Letters, Announcements, 6j'c. 501 



Sir, — 1 beg leave to offer the following notes to the readers 

 of 'The Ibis ^— 



Ornithologists appear to have overlooked the fact that 

 the Cat-bird of New Holland, commonly called by the sj)ecific 

 name adopted in 1827 by Vigors and Horsfield (Trans, Linn. 

 Soc. XV. p. 264), from Latham's MSS., had been long pre- 

 viously described by Paykull in the ' Nova Acta Societatis 

 Scientiarum Upsaliensis' for 1815 (vol. vii. p. 282), under the 

 designation of Lanius crassirostris. On referring to PaykulPs 

 excellent description and figure, no one can doubt the identity 

 of the two birds. The species, therefore, supposing it to be 

 entitled to generic separation, should stand as ^lurwdus* crassi- 

 7-osfris (Payk.), and not ^. smithi (V. & H.). Its other 

 synonyms have been given by Mr. Gould (Handb. B. Austral, 

 i. p. 446). 



In ' The Ibis ' for 1861 (p. 120), I have stated that Mr. E. L. 

 Layard obtained living examples of the Vulturine Guinea-fowl 

 [Numida vulturina) in Bojana Bay, in Madagascar. Having 

 subsequently ascertained that the true patria of this species is 

 the district of Lamoo, on the east coast of Africa, between 2^ 

 and 3° S. lat. (c/. P. Z. S. 1863, p. 126, 1865, p. 677, and 1867, 

 p. 953), I came to the conclusion that Mr. Layard must have 

 made an error. But it would appear from the following passage 

 in a volume of travels, to which Dr. Peters has called my atten- 

 tion, that a second species of Numida is found in Madagascar, 

 which Mr. Layard may have mistaken for N. vulturina. Captain 

 W. F. W. Owen, in his ' Narrative of a Voyage to explore the 

 Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar' (London: 1833, 

 vol. ii. p. 36), states that when he arrived at the north-east 

 coast of Madagascar and Diego Suarez Bay, or British Sound, the 

 chief and all the inhabitants came in state to visit him, " bring- 

 ing with them a species of Guinea-fowl with a long tail, which 

 we had never before met with. It was marked like the Jungle- 

 fowl of India, or the Argus Pheasant, but its downy plumage 



* Dr. Cabauis (Mus. Ilein. i. p. 213, note) writes tlic uauie incorrectly 

 AUurocduf, since aiXovpos becomes cclurus in Latin. 



