168 
Capt. W. V. Legge on two Races or 
tins. It never colonized that island, as has been the case 
in Aldabra. It is, of course, impossible to say by what 
means the bird, which is not a strong flier in its native 
country, reached Aldabra, an island in a direct line consider¬ 
ably nearer to Madagascar than Mauritius; but no one can 
doubt that the Aldabra race is a direct descendant from the 
Madagascar type, which having reached an island in which 
there was no occasion for exercising its power of flight, disused 
a mode of locomotion naturally distasteful to it. As an imme¬ 
diate consequence, the muscles and bones of the wing beeame 
aborted; and if we are allowed to judge from our domestic 
aquatic birds, the shortening of the limb, as we observe 
it in the Aldabra bird, may have been effected within a very 
limited number of generations. In such a case it seems to 
me as great an error to efface the evidence of close relationship 
by giving a distinct binomial term to the descendant race as 
it would be not to distinguish it at all from the parent type; 
and no method appears to me to be more appropriate and 
expressive than to designate the Aldabra bird as Rallusgularis, 
var. aldabrana. 
XIX.— On two Races or Subspecies of Indian Birds inha¬ 
biting Ceylon. By Captain W. V. Legge, B.A., F.Z.S., 
&c. 
Acridotheres melanosternus , n. subsp. 
A comparison of the entire series of Acridotheres tristis in 
the national collection, from all parts of India, as well as from 
localities into which the Indian species has been introduced, 
such as the Mauritius and Bourbon, has convinced me of the 
propriety of separating the Ceylonese race; and for it I pro¬ 
pose the above title. 
Messrs. Blyth and Jerdon pointed out many years ago that 
the Ceylon birds of this species were darker than the Indian. 
The former, in his Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic So¬ 
ciety’s Museum (1849), has the following remark :—“ No. 574, 
Dark variety from Ceylon. Presented by Dr. Templeton.” 
Jerdon follows, in his ‘Birds of India,’ vol. ii., with “those 
from Ceylon appear to be always darker.” It is true the 
Ceylon race is much darker, both as regards the coloration of 
the upper surface and the hue of the flanks; but the writers in 
question appear to have overlooked a feature in the plumage of 
the bird which is constant in the Ceylon race and always absent 
in the Indian, viz. that the black of the throat descends down 
the centre of the breast, and passes round above the white 
