1875.| MR. P. L. SCLATER ON CONTINENTAL MENAGERIES. 379 
the plumage is as follows. Bill dusky above, fleshy yellow along 
edge of upper mandible, as is also the lower mandible, except the tip, 
which is dusky ; legs and feet dingy yellow; iris brown, as in the 
adult. A black spot immediately in front of eye; lores and forehead 
cinereous grey, becoming darker on the vertex ; nape and behind eye 
blackish, edged, except on the latter part, with tawny fulvous ; hind 
neck, scapulars, and tertials yellowish tawny, with broad blackish oval 
marks, inside which the centre of the feather is dusky ; wing-coverts 
slate-grey, the median edged fulvous buff with an adjacent blackish 
border, Quills dark silver-grey, the first two darker on the inner 
webs (probably the young of 6); tail pale slate-grey, tipped broadly 
with tawny yellow, with an adjacent black cross ray ; beneath white. 
At this stage the wing measured 4:5 inches, and the tail was short 
and rounded. ‘This example was shot on the Ist July. By the 
13th there were numbers of well-grown birds about, with a wing of 
6:2 inches, the bill measuring at that time 0-9 inch at front; the 
tarsi and feet were then dusky yellow, with the joints and outer 
edge of webs brownish. The bill was brownish yellow above, with 
the gape and base of lower mandible dingy yellow. The grey of the 
lores and forehead and the black of the nape had deepened, the ver- 
tex was less edged with fulvous than the above-described nestling ; 
the back and scapulars were much the same, except that the tawny 
hue was leaving the centres and edges, which were both becoming 
whitish. On the radius the feathers were darker, as were also the 
quills, especially the inner webs of the first (in the example now be- 
fore me); the outer tail-feather was white; and the remainder had an 
arrow-headed subterminal spot, of larger size than in the young 
individual. 
Besides the above-mentioned species, Hydrochelidon leucopareia, 
Gelochelidon anglicus, and Sterna bengalensis were very abundant, 
and all in winter plumage. ‘The year before I had shot an example of 
G. anglicus with the black hood in the same district as early as the 
18th of March. It is very abundant in this part of the island; and 
last month, among numbers of winter-plumaged birds, I now and 
then recognized one with the summer hood. Sterna pelecanoides 
was also common in the Hambantota district; it breeds on certain 
rocks off our coasts, as I am informed by Mr. Nevill. 
Trincomalie, Oct. 20, 1874. 
June 1, 1875. 
Dr. Giinther, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 
Mr. Sclater made some remarks on the most noticeable objects he 
had seen during a recent visit to the Zoological Gardens of Rotter- 
dam, the Hague, Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Ghent. 
At Rotterdam the specimen of Cryptoprocta ferox, observed on 
the occasion of his previous visit in 1873*, was still alive and 
* See P. Z. 8. 1875, p. 473, 
