Mr. J. Gould on a neio Humming-bird from the Bahamas. Ill 



Total length 10 inches, bill If, wing 6, tail 2^, tarsi 2\, 

 bare space above the tarsal joint 1 ^, middle toe and nail 2^. 



Habitat. Cape River, Queensland. 



Remark. This bird appears to be most nearly allied to the 

 GalUnula oUvacea of Mejen {vide Nov. Acta, 1834, p. 109, 

 tab. 20) ; but that species is of larger size, and has legs still 

 more disproportionate to the size of its body. The white- 

 breasted Indian Gallmule ( G. iihoenicura of Pennant) and the 

 GalUnula akool of the same country are, in my opinion, also 

 nearly allied to it. 



Prof. Reich enbach has instituted the genus Amaurornis for 

 the reception of Gallinida oUvacea, with Avliich the late Prince 

 Bonaparte associates the G. femoralis of Tschudi. It is for 

 ornithologists to decide upon the propriety of this subdivision. 



Family TrochilidsB. 



Having lately received, through the kindness of His Excel- 

 lency Sir James Walker, Governor of the Bahama Islands, 

 four specimens of a Humming-bird, of which for the last 

 twenty years I have been anxious to procure examples, I feel 

 convinced that, as I had for some time supposed from a 

 conversation I had with the late Dr. Bryant, two species of 

 this lovely family of birds inhabit those islands ; and this 

 conviction is strengthened by the circumstance that when in 

 England, just prior to his lamented death, he informed me 

 that the humming-bird of the southern islands was supposed 

 to be distinct from that killed in the neighbourhood of 

 Nassau. He at the same time promised that I should have 

 any examples that he could spare from his collection — a pro- 

 mise which has been partly performed either by Mrs. Bryant 

 or her husband's executors sending me, through Mr. G. N. 

 Lawrence, of New York, a male, which I find is different from 

 those sent me by Sir James Walker. As the birds killed 

 round Nassau are identical with the type of the genus Doricha 

 {D. Evelynce)^ which is still in the Loddigesian collection, the 

 southern bird requires a specific appellation ; and it would 

 have given me great pleasure to name it after its discoverer, 

 had not another species of the same section of the Trochilidte 

 been named Bryantce by Mr. Lawrence. 



The new bird, which is probably from Long Island, pos- 

 sesses some peculiarly interesting specific characters. I say 

 from Long Island, because, on reference to the chart con- 

 sulted by Dr. Bryant and myself during his last visit to my 

 house, I find that is the locality marked as being the place in 

 which he procured some of his specimens. 



In size the new species, which I propose to call Doricha 



9* 



