the Racquet-tailed Boilers. 351 



liead, throat, and breast pale brownish buff, broadly striped 

 with white, and without any trace of blue, much as in Cora- 

 cias uo'vius, but much paler. 



On referrinfj to Trimcn's original description of Coracias 

 spatulatus (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1880, p. 31), I find that he states: 

 " throat, breast, belly, thighs, and under wing- and tail- 

 coverts pale bright verditer-blue, varied on the lower throat 

 and breast by lih\cine cinnamon-brown webs, leaving the 

 shaft-stripes of the blue ; cheeks and ear-coverts mixed lilac 

 and verditer-blue ; sides of neck coloured like the back ; sides 

 of breast dull sandy brownish, with bluish-white shaft- 

 stripes." Thus Trimcn's C. spatulatus is very different from 

 Canon Tristram's specimen, and also from the two adult birds 

 in the British Museum, but somewhat resembles the third 

 (young) specimen in tliat collection, whicli appears to me to 

 be in all probability the young of the true C. spatulatus. 

 On referring to Professor Barboza du Bocage's description of 

 Coracias di'spar, from Caconda (Jorn. Sc. Lisb. xxviii. 

 p. 227, 1880), I find that it agrees exactly with the two birds 

 from Caconda and the Umvuli lliver, as he describes the 

 underparts as blue (" subtus thalassinus ") ; and the species 

 with the underparts blue, as in C. abi/ssim'cus, will stand 

 therefore as Coracias dispar, Bocage. The bird in Canon 

 Tristram's collection is so very distinct from both Coracias 

 spatulatus and Coracias dispar that 1 cannot do otherwise 

 than give it a name, and propose to call it Coracias Weigalli, 

 and give the description of it as follows : — 



Pilco et nucha cuta dorso antico sordide olivaceis ; frontc, mento et 

 superciliis albis ; dorso postico, scapularibus et secuudariis intimis 

 dilute cinnamomeis ; aliis et cauda sicut in Coracio dispare colo- 

 ratis ; capitis lateribus, gula et pectore toto pallide fusco-cervinis, 

 conspicue albo striatis et indistiucte vinaceo tinctis ; abdomine 

 imo, subcaudahbus et subalaribus pallide turcino-cajruleis ; rec- 

 tricibus extimis valde elongatis et spatulatis. 



Long. tot. 13-0, culm. 1-25, alae 6-3, caudx 8*3, tarsi 0-78. 



It is unfortunate that I have not liad an opportunity of 

 examining the type of Coracias spatulatus^ which is, I believe, 

 in the museum at Cape Town ; and the material at hand is so 

 very meagre that it is impossible at present to say much 

 respecting the geographical range of these Racquet-tailed 

 Rollers. Besides the specimens above referred to there are 

 examples in the Lisbon Museum from West Africa which 

 are doubtless all referable to C. dispar ; there are also several 

 in the Berlin Museum obtained by Boehm at Kakoma, and 

 it will be interesting to ascertain to which form these speci- 

 mens belonff. 



