28 MR. E. L. LAYARD ON THE BIRDS OF FIJI. [Jan. 5, 
which, at the suggestion of Professor Wyville Thomson, I now pro- 
ceed to describe as 
PriLoTIS PROVOCATOR, sp. nov. 
Male. Above greyish brown, tinged with green, especially on the 
rump ; back, between the shoulders (interscapulium) marked with 
narrow, white, indistinct pencillings, caused by the shafts of the 
feathers being whitish, showing plainer in some specimens than in 
others ; back of the head (sinciput) indistinctly mottled with white ; 
forehead (frons) blackish, the colour extending and darkening in 
front of the eye and under it backwards to the ear, where it bifur- 
cates ; eye surrounded by a patch of bright yellow, broken imme- 
diately below the eye by a white spot, and changing into brownish 
yellow above the eye; eyelid yellow; chin grey; feathers of the 
neck (jugulum) lanceolate, grey, tinged with yellowish green; breast 
(pectus) the same; underparts generally pale grey, more or less 
mottled; vent nearly immaculate; wing and tail-feathers brown ; 
primaries faintly edged with grey; secondaries deeply edged with 
yellowish green ; tertiaries and coverts edged and tipped with pale 
greenish grey, the tips forming two bars; flexure of wing on the 
inside yellow-brown. 
Bill black ; legs verditer ; iris brown. Length 7" 3’; wing 4"; 
tail 3! 7!"; tarsus 1” 2'; bill 1” 1". 
Female. Less brightly coloured than the male, especially about 
the eye; but above all she differs remarkably in size, being, length 
6" 3!!, wing 3” 6", tail 2” 11", tarsus 11’, bill 11! 
The want of bare spaces about the eye and the lanceolate shape 
of the feathers at once distinguish this species from P. procerior ; 
but in habits and call-note they are similar. 
Seven specimens, two of which were females, were obtained at 
Kandavu. They frequented, in considerable numbers, the Hrythrina 
trees that happened to be in flower; the males preponderated over 
the females, it being, I fancy, from the sexual development, the 
breeding-season. I find also that P. procerior is breeding here in 
Ovalaii, together with many other species. They clung head down- 
wards to the bunches of the gorgeous flowers, extracting the juices 
and the minute insects which came there for the same purpose, and 
with which their stomachs were crammed. While thus employed 
they were silent, but when among the cocoanut-groves or the leafy 
forest they were very noisy. My impression is, that several new 
forms of this genus will be found in these islands. This one seems 
to be confined to Kandavu; but as I have met with the genus 
wherever I have been (I have not had time to shoot specimens), I 
fancy we shall find more than the two known species among the 200 
and odd islands of the Fiji group. 
In looking over Finsch and Hartlaub’s table showing the geo- 
graphical distribution of species (I regret to say the German text is 
a sealed book to me), I see he gives the Fiji group as a habitat of 
P. carunculata without designating the locality. 
A little Rhipidura has turned up here in Ovalaii, which (as I cannot 
