APPENDIX A 287 



directions. The adult is a very handsome bird, the black 

 of the upper-parts being relieved by the electric-blue tips 

 to the wing-coverts and feathers of the lower back and 

 rump, the wings and tail are washed with dull purplish- 

 blue, the throat is white and extends in a buff collar 

 round the neck, the under wing-coverts are buff and the 

 breast and rest of the under-parts deep chestnut. The 

 natives brought numbers of the half-fiedged young of 

 this species to the base camp during May and June and 

 many were purchased by the Javanese soldiers and 

 convicts ; but as they fed them on boiled rice only, their 

 hves were brief. The great Shoe-billed Kingfisher 

 (Clytoceyx) was not met with by the members of our 

 Expedition, but Dr. Van Oort has described a new form 

 which he calls Clytoceyx rex imperator, from a specimen 

 procured by Dr. Lorentz on the Noord River. Another 

 large species, Melidora macrorhimis, with a curious brown 

 spotted plumage above w^as not uncommon ; it usually 

 frequented the lower branches and undergrowth within a 

 few feet of the ground and when disturbed merely 

 mounted to a more conspicuous perch. 



The lovely Racquet-tailed species of the genus 

 Tanysiptera were not procured, though Dr. H. A. 

 Lorentz met with a specimen on the Noord River. 



FAMILIES PSITTACID^E AND LOKIID.E — PARROTS 

 AND LORIES. 



Another very numerously represented group is the 

 Parrots of which twenty-two different species were 

 procured, varying in size from the Great Black Cockatoo 

 {Microglossus aterrimus), which is about the size of a 

 Raven and has an enormously powerful bill, to the 

 tiny Pygmy Parrot (Nasiterna keiensis) which is about 

 the size of a Golden-crested Wren. This latter species 

 has recently been described by Mr. Walter Rothschild 

 as new, under the name of Nasiterna viridipedus from 



