158 APPENDIX. 



NOTE II, p. 92. The following paper, reprinted from the Zoological Society's ' Proceedings ' 

 (1865, p. 682, et seq.), furnishes some further details concerning the structure of this re- 

 markable form. 



ON THE STRUCTURE OF LEPTOSOMA DISCOLOR. 1 By P. L. SCLATER, M.A., PH.D., 



F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. 



SINCE the time of Brisson and Levaillant, I am not aware that any original observations 

 have been made upon one of the most abnormal types of the strange 'avifauna of Madagascar 

 the Leptosoma of Vieillot although several attempts have been made to fit it into different parts 

 of the natural system. The collectors who have recently obtained access into the interior of 

 Madagascar have sent home many examples of both sexes of this bird, and I am thus enabled to 

 offer a few remarks upon some remarkable points in its structure which have hitherto escaped 

 observation. 



The Leptosoma was first made known to science by Brisson, 2 who describes both sexes in 

 his usual accurate manner from specimens in the museum of M. 1'Abbe Aubry. Brisson 

 remarks upon the obvious differences between this bird and the ordinary Cuculi, which might 

 entitle it to constitute a genus by itself. 3 Buffon figures both sexes in the 'Planches EnlumineeV 

 (pi. 587, 588), and in the text thereto copies parts of Brisson's description. 



Levaillant also figures both sexes of this bird in his ' Oiseaux d'Afrique,' 4 and pretends to 

 have met with it in ' Cafferland," as in the many other cases where the falsehood of his state- 

 ments is equally glaring. 5 Several scientific appellations have been bestowed upon the bird upon 

 the faith of these authors, such as Cuculus afer, Gm. S. N. i. 418, Cuculus discolor, Hermann, 

 Bucco africanus, Stephens (Zool. ix, p. 25), &\\&Leptosomusviridis, Vieill. Enc. Meth. hi, p. 1342." 

 Of these it becomes necessary to adopt discolor as the permanent specific designation of the 

 species, although not the first given (as Gmelin's term involves a gross error in the locality), and 

 to combine it with Vieillot's generic term Leptosoma, so that the correct name of the bird will be 

 Leptosoma discolor. 



Lesson in 1831 (Traite d'Ornithologie, p. 134) conceived the unhappy idea that the older 

 authors had been wrong in regarding the somewhat dissimilar sexes of this bird as belonging to 

 the same species, and accordingly made of the female a separate species under the name Leptosoma 



1 From the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society .of London,' November 28th, 1865. 



2 Ornith. iv, p. 160, pi. xv, f. 1 and 2. 



8 " Species ista rostro donatur multo rectiore quam reliqute omnes hujus generis species : quod 

 rostrum nequaquam est superne convexum, sed angulosum. Nares habet lonyas, et versus medium longi- 

 ludinem mandibuloi superioris oblique positas. Ab aliis speciebus insuper discrepat cauda duodecim 

 rectricibus conflata, dum in alteris decem tantum nee amplius unquam observavi. Hcec species posset 

 suum genus constituere." 



* ' Le Vourougdriou,' v. t. 226 et 227. 



5 Cf. Sundevall's ' Commentary on Levaillant in Kong. Sv. Vet. Ak. Handl./ n. s., ii, pt. 1. 



5 Here and in his ' Analyse' Vieillot writes the name Leptosomus. But Leptosoma is 

 correct. 



