1877.] THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON BATRACHOSTOMUS. 421 



field was the first naturalist who described (1820), and afterwards 

 figured, one of its members, an inhabitant of Java — B. javensis. 

 Temminck soon afterwards (1823) described and figured another 

 species from Bencoolen, in Sumatra, obtained by Messrs. Diard and 

 Duvaucel, probably under the auspices of Sir Stamford Raffles ; and 

 a few years later (1830) Vigors made known the giant form of Su- 

 matra, B. auritus, sent to England among the collections of Sir 

 Stamford. In 1837 Mr. Gould added a fourth species, B.stellatus, 

 describing it as inhabiting Java. Dr. Jerdon, in his Second Supple- 

 ment to his 'Catalogue of the Birds of Southern India' (184.5), 

 announced the discovery by Capt. Roberts of a representative of the 

 genus in Peninsular India,which, however, he never saw, and which up 

 to this date remains unidentified. Not many years elapsed before Bly th 

 (1847) published an account of a sixth species, obtained at Malacca 

 by Mr. Frith, B. affinis ; and two years later he received from Dar- 

 jeeling the fragments of two nestlings, which he identified as belonging 

 to this species (/. c). In Ceylon, Layard discovered and so added 

 another species to the list (which may or may not be the same as the 

 South-Indian form) — a species described by Blyth (1849) under 

 Layard's title of -S. moniliger. The whole of these six or seven 

 species were in rufous or rufous-brown plumage ; but in 1850 Bona- 

 parte (/. i. c.) made known the fact that each sex in one species at least 

 (S. javensis) wore a plumage peculiar to itself — a statement reiterated 

 in wider terms and confirmed by Prof. Schlegel {I. i. c.) four years later. 

 This important fact did not deter Mr. G. R. Gray from describing in 

 1857 a bird in grey and brown mottled plumage obtained the year 

 before by Mr. Hodgson's collectors at an elevation of some 3000 or 

 4000 feet behind Darjeeling, as belonging not only to a new species 

 but to a distinct genus — Otothrix hodgsoni. 



From the year 1849 until the date of the visit of the 'Challenger' 

 Expedition to the Philippines, the elforts of naturalists, while con- 

 siderably increasing and correcting our knowledge of the geographical 

 distribution of the Batrachostomi, had not made known any new 

 species. Mr. Blyth had already announced the occurrence of 

 B. auritus in Malacca ; and Mr. Low has discovered it in Borneo. 

 Mr. Motley obtained B. cornutus at Banjarmassing, in Borneo.; and 

 the Marchese Doria found it at Sarawak. Tickell has figured and 

 described B. affinis from Burma ;- and Lieut. Wardlaw Ramsay dis- 

 covered the same species in the plumage of Otothrix hodgsoni on the 

 Karen-nee hills in that country. The range oi B. stellatus has been 

 made to include Malacca by Mr. Blyth's researches, and extended to 

 Borneo (Sarawak) by Marchese G. Doria. Mr. Bourdillon has quite 

 recently discovered in Travancore examples of a species of the genus 

 which, while confirming Dr. Jerdon's statement that one of its 

 members occurred in Southern India, may prove to be a distinct 

 form. And, lastly, the Philippine island Mindanao has been added 

 to the area of the genus (as restricted), by the discovery there made 

 by the naturalists of the ' Challenger ' Expedition of a large species. 

 Examples of the genus, so far as at present recorded, therefore pre- 

 sent themselves in Ceylon, Southern India (Wynaad, Travancore), 



