182 Miscellaneous. 



nearly pure black and also by whitish streaks, whilst below and on 

 the sides of the head the spots are due almost entirely to albinism. 

 These mixtures, in v,'hich black inlays a great part, produce a dull 

 and speckled plumage which, up to a certain point, resembles that 

 of our owls. 



The tendency to melanism occurs also in the parroquets of New 

 Zealand. These birds belong to the group of the Platycerci of which 

 ornithologists have formed the genus Cydnorhamphtis. Its plumage 

 is of a dull green ; a little pure red or yellow is still to be seen on 

 the forehead or on some other very restricted parts ; all the upper 

 part of the body of the bird is of a yellowish-green colour much 

 toned down with black, and below a similar but lighter tint spreads 

 almost uniformly. In C'l/anorhamphus alpiaus the dominant colora- 

 tion nearly corresponds to the yellowish green of the gamut No. 4, 

 toned down by -f'-^ of black ; in C. novce-zelandice, the yellowish 

 greeii belongs to the gamut No. 2 and to that No. 3, but it is dulled 

 by -J&5 of black ; lastly, in C. auriceps the general tint of the plumage 

 agrees ^vith the yellowish green No. 1, toned down by -f^ of black 

 over the whole upper surface of the body. 



The islands of the great Indo-Pacific Ocean which are near Africa 

 resemble New Zealand as regards the coloration of the plumage of 

 their parrots. Thus in Madagascar, in the Mauritius to the east, 

 and in the Seychelles and Comoro islands towards the north, and 

 even on some parts of the neighbouring shore of Africa, we find 

 several black species of parrots belonging to the genus Coracopsis. 



In Australia the Calypjiorhi/ndd abound ; and the whole of their 

 plumage is of an intense black colour or softened with white, ^lany 

 of the Austrahan parroquets have pure colours in the same degree 

 as those of America ; but in many of these birds the tendency to 

 melanism makes its appearance in various parts of the body, some- 

 times by the existence of a uniform tint very much toned down, 

 and sometimes by the whole basal part of the feathers being invaded 

 by black, which only bears near the margins a more or less naiTow 

 band of red, yellow, green, or blue. 



In the memoir, of which I could only give a short abstract here, I 

 re\iew several other ornithological families which have furnished 

 analogous facts and show the same tendencies — for example, the 

 families of the Ejngfishers, liallidce, and Ducks. But I have no space 

 to sjieak of them here ; and the facts which I have indicated suffice to 

 show that in the southern Indo-Pacific region the ornithological types 

 which elsewhere are clothed with brilliant colours, generally have 

 tints toned down with black or weakened by a tendency to albinism. 

 — Comptes Rendus. December 29, 1873, pp. 1551-1554. 



On the Genus CalHgnathus and on Kogia Floweri of Dr. Gill. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



Dr. Theodore Gill, in a semipopular paper on " Spenn-whales 

 giant and pigmy," in the 'American Naturalist,' 1871, iv. p. 725, 

 gives a general account of these animals, and proposes a new species, 



