hy the B.O.U. Expedition to Dutch New Guinea. 87 



its cries are not nearly so loud as those of the Birds-of- 

 Paradise of the genus Paradisea. 



Mr. Claude Grant discovered a nest of M. altera with 

 two eggs at Parimau^ an interesting find, as no properly 

 authenticated eggs of that species had previously been 

 obtained. 



Family Eulabetid.e — Tree- Starlings. 



Among the smaller Glossy Starlings we must specially 

 mention a new species, Calornis mystacea [O. -Grant, Bull. 

 B. O. C. xxix. p. 28 (1911)], discovered by the Expedition. 

 It has the plumage purplish-bronze and is especially 

 remarkable in having long semi-erect plumes on the fore- 

 head as well as long neck-hackles. Three specimens were 

 obtained flying in company with large flocks of C. metaUica, 

 a rather widely distributed species, which ranges to North 

 Australia, the Moluccas, and the Solomon Islands. 



The Grackles or Talking-Starlings are represented by t\\^o 

 lovely species, the first being the well-known Duinont's 

 Crackle {Mino dumunti), a dark glossy greenish-black bird 

 with a yellow belly and white under tail-coverts. It has 

 a brown eye surrounded by a large naked orange patch 

 partially covered Avith short stift' filaments. The second 

 species, Robertson's Golden Crackle {Melanopyrrhus robert- 

 soni), is au equally handsome, but mueii rarer bird, and the 

 fine series of adults obtained by the Expedition proves that 

 it is a species quite distinct from M. orientalis, the form 

 found in British New Guinea, which has a large black patch 

 on the occiput, 



Robertson^'s Grackle has the cheeks and upper part of 

 the throat, as well as the back, wings and breast, black 

 glossed with green; the rest of the head, neck and chest, 

 as well as the lower back, rump, upper tail-coverts and 

 belly, are orange-yellow. In the adult there is no trace of 

 a black patch on the occiput, but the quite young bird has 

 the entire crown black, and specimens which have not 

 assumed the fully adult plumage and still retain some black 

 feathers on the occiput might be mistaken for M. orientalis. 



