the Racquet-tailed Rollers. 351 



head, throat, and breast pale brownish buff, broadly striped 

 •with white, and without any trace of blue, much as in Cora- 

 cias ncevius, but much paler. 



On referring to Trimen's original description of Coracias 

 spatulatus (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1880, p. 31), I find that he states: 

 " throat, breast, belly, thighs, and under wing- and tail- 

 coverta pale bright verditer-blue, varied on the lower throat 

 and breast by lilacine cinnamon-brown webs, leaving the 

 shaft-stripes of the blue ; cheeks and ear-coverts mixed lilac 

 and verditer-blue ; sides of neck coloured like the back ; sides 

 of breast dull sandy brownish, with bluish-white shaft- 

 stripes." Thus Trimen's G, spatulatus is very different from 

 Canon Tristram's specimen, and also from the two adult birds 

 in the British Museum, but somewhat resembles the third 

 (young) specimen in that collection, which appears to me to 

 be in all probability the young of the true G. spatulatus. 

 On referring to Professor Barboza du Bocage's description of 

 Goracias dispar, from Caconda (Jorn. Sc. Lisb. xxviii. 

 p. 227, 1880), I find that it agrees exactly with the two birds 

 from Caconda and the Umvuli River, as he describes the 

 underparts as blue (" subtus thalassinus ") ; and the species 

 with the underparts blue, as in G. ahyssinicus^ will stand 

 therefore as Goracias dispar, Bocao-e. The bird in Canon 

 Tristram's collection is so very distmct from both Coracias 

 spatulatus and Goracias dispar that I cannot do otherwise 

 than give it a name, and propose to call it Goracias Weigalli, 

 and give the description of it as follows : — 



Pileo et nucha cum dorso antico sordide olivaceis ; fronte, mento et 

 superciliis albis ; dorso postico, scapularibus et secundariis iiitimis 

 dilute cinnamomeis ; ahis et Cauda sicut in Coracio dispare colo- 

 ratis ; capitis lateribus, gula et pectore toto pallida fusco-cervinis, 

 conspicue albo striatis et indistiucte vinaceo tinctis ; abdomine 

 imo, subcaudalibus et subalaribus pallida turcino-cseruleis ; rec- 

 tricibus estimis valda clongatis et spatulatis. 



Long. tot. 13-0, culm. 1-25, aloe 6-3, caudoe 8-3, tarsi 0-78. 



It is unfortunate that I have not had an opportunity of 

 examining the type of Coracias spatulatus, which is, I believe, 

 in the museum at Cape Town ; and the material at hand is so 

 very meagre that it is impossible at present to say much 

 respecting the geographical range of these Racquet-tailed 

 Rollers. Besides the specimens above referred to there are 

 examples in the Lisbon Museum from West Africa which 

 are doubtless all referable to C. dispar ; there are also several 

 in the Berlin Museum obtained by Boehm at Kakoma, and 

 it will be interesting to ascertain to which form these speci- 

 mens belong. 



