236 Miscellaneous. 



nearly as long as the preceding, but small and acuminate ; the first 

 and third joints are white, the second is pitchy. Large thoracic 

 segment twice as broad as long, very slightly narrowed in front, all 

 the angles rounded, very pale yellow ; disk with a large opaque 

 white patch which is narrower and rounded in front, its posterior 

 border nearly reaching the hind margin of the segment ; the second 

 and third segments very short, slightly narrower than the large an- 

 terior segment ; the segments which follow become gradually longer, 

 narrower, and more convex ; the eighth segment is the narrowest ; the 

 ninth is scarcely broader ; the tenth is narrow at the base, widened 

 behind, with a slight callosity on the disk ; the eleventh segment is 

 very short and as wide as the sixth ; the twelfth is triangular, rounded 

 at the apex. The general colour of the body is dirty white." 



Note on Cossypha pj T rrhopygia, Hartlaub. 

 By E. Bowdler Sharpe, F.Z.S. &c. 



During a recent rearrangement of the species of African Robin- 

 Chats in the British Museum, I was surprised to find that a speci- 

 men of Cossypha pyrrhopygia in the collection was not a Cossypha 

 but a Cittocincla, with graduated tail. On examining the history of 

 the species, we find that it was first described by Dr. Hartlaub in 

 his ' System der Ornithologie West-Afrika's ' (p. 78), from the col- 

 lection of the Comte de Riocour, with the doubtful habitat of West 

 Africa. The specimen was shown to Dr. Hartlaub in Paris by M. 

 Jules Verreaux ; and about the same time another example was sold 

 by the Maison Verreaux to the British Museum, with the locality 

 " West Africa." I have, however, no doubt that neither of these 

 specimens ever really came from West Africa ; for the species is Cit- 

 tocincla luzoniensis (Kittl.) from the Philippines. A-bout the years 

 1855 and 1856 the localities of the specimens sold by the Maison 

 Verreaux seem to have been most untrustworthy ; for the British 

 Museum, was then victimized with the Micrastur castanilius of " New 

 Granada," which is nothing more than Astur macroscelides of Western 

 Africa (cf. Gurney, Ibis, 1875, p. 363). Nothing can be more 

 annoying than to have apparently trustworthy species foisted upon 

 science, and to find that, after having been incorporated in many 

 standard works, they have to be expelled after a lapse of years 

 from the fauna where they have found a place. I take the present 

 opportunity of correcting an error into which I was unfortunately 

 beguiled last year in a very similar way to that in which Dr. Hart- 

 laub was led to describe C. pyrrhopygia as West- African. I de- 

 scribed a bird as a new genus from Jamaica under the name of 

 Phoenicomanes iora (P. Z. S. 1874, p. 427, pi. liv.), which now turns 

 out to be Iora lafresnayi, of Malacca. The specimen in question 

 was sold to the Museum as from the identical collection in which a 

 new Todus was contained ; and I am convinced that the vendor acted 

 in perfect good faith, as he was the first to point out to me, on his 

 receiving a second specimen direct from Malacca, that there was pro- 

 bably some error in the Jamaican habitat of the previous example. 



