22 COLLECTIONS PROM MELANESIA. 



This interesting specimen is not easy to determine, beiug in size 

 like D. cervinus and in colour like D. leachii. As I endeavour 

 to show below, those species, however, run into each other so 

 much that it is impossible to define the exact characters of 

 each. 



Since I wrote my ' Monograph of the Kingfishers,' our knowledge 

 of the great Laughing Jackasses of Australia has not been much 

 increased. The rango of true Dacelo has been extended to South- 

 eastern New Guinea, where Dacelo intermedins of Salvador! replaces 

 D. cervinus of the Australian continent ; but otherwise the number 

 of species in Australia has remained the same as it was on the com- 

 pletion of that work. 



A comparison, however, of the large series of Laughing King- 

 fishers now in the British Museum raises great doubts in my mind 

 as to the validity of some of the species admitted by me up to 1871 ; 

 and I therefore add a few notes on the birds now before me. 



The chief difference between D. cervinus and D. leachii is supposed 

 to consist in the smaller size, the buff-coloured breast, and the blue 

 outer web of the external tail-feather of the former. It seems to me 

 now that this last is a character of no value ; for it is evident that 

 the young males commence with a rufous tail like the old females, 

 and that they gain their blue tails by the gradual expansion of the 

 blue cross bands, which unite by degrees until the whole tail becomes 

 uniform blue. Thus there arrives a time in the development of the 

 tail when the outer web of the tail-feather has not quite lost its 

 bars before becoming uniform, and thus the barring of the tail, con- 

 sidered to be a specific difference between D. cervinus and D. leachii, 

 is of very little importance. As regards the other characters, we 

 shall see what they are worth ; and in order to trace the develop- 

 ment of the species, I add a description of a young D. cervinus : — 



Nestling. General colour above dark brown, with scarcely per- 

 ceptible lighter brown edges to the feathers of the mantle and 

 scapulars ; least wing-coverts brown like the back ; median and 

 greater series brown, tipped with pale verditer-blue or light greenish 

 cobalt ; bastard- wing brown, washed with blue ; primary-coverts 

 blackish, externally greenish blue ; quills blackish, externally deep 

 blue, greener on the primaries, which are white near the bases of 

 both webs ; the secondaries edged with white at the tips, the inner 

 ones brown like the back ; lower back and rump pale silvery cobalt ; 

 upper tail-coverts bright rufous, barred with black ; tail-feathers 

 bright rufous, paler at the ends, barred with dark blue, these 

 blue bands margined above and below with black, the bands 

 broader near the base and narrower towards the ends ; the blue 

 bands at the base of the middle feathers already coalescing into one 

 uniform blue base ; head nearly uniform dark brown, the feathers 

 broadly centred with blackish, the edges somewhat mottled with 

 reddish-brown markings ; the nape lighter, the crest- feathers being 

 whiter, with narrow dark-brown centres ; bind neck clear fulvous, 

 with more or less distinct zi^zns: cross linos of brown ; lores tawny 

 buff, as also the feathers below the eve, the latter with blackish 



