1877.] THE MARCIUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON BATRACHOSTOMUS. 423 



of B. moniliger, Layard, collected in Ceylon, by Mr. S. Cliapinan 

 {mus. nostr.) is marked " sex, female." A grey-brown speckled 

 bird of the same species, obtained at Ratnapura, in Ceylon, is marked 

 c? by the collector, Mr. H. Nevil {mus. nostr.). Of two indivi- 

 duals belonging to the genus recently obtained in Travancore by 

 Mr. BourdiUon, and referred by Mr. Hume (/. c.) to B. moniliger, 

 Layard, one, in rufous plumage, said by Mr. Hume to agree with the 

 description of the Ceylon type, is marked female by the collector ; 

 the other, in grey-and-brown freckled and mottled plumage, is marked 

 a male. A single specimen of a new species from Mindanao, disco- 

 vered by the naturalists of the 'Challenger' Expedition, is in rufous- 

 brown striated plumage ; and the sex is stated on the label to be 

 female. Lieut. Wardiaw Ramsay ascertained the sex of a Batracho- 

 stomns obtained by him on the Karen hills (5000 ft. elevation) to be 

 male ; and this individual is in grey-and-brown mottled plumage, 

 hardlj distinguishable from the type of Otothrix hodgsoni and from 

 grey-and-brown mottled examples of B. affinis, ex Malacca. Of B. 

 stellatus ( = 5. stictopterus, Cab.) I have never seen examples in 

 grey plumage. It is a common bird in Malaccan collections ; and I 

 have examined a great number of individuals. It has two phases of 

 plumage — bright rufous or rufous bay, and dark brown and rufous 

 brown. Younger birds possess either of these hues, but have the 

 upper plumage striated. Count Salvadori's Latin description, taken 

 from three Sarawak individuals (one of which is labelled as being a 

 male), applies to the rufous-brown phase of dress ; for he says, 

 "Supra rufo-brunneus." We might infer, therefore, that the 

 bright rufous dress belongs here again to the female ; but contro- 

 verting this conclusion is a Bornean example in bright rufous plumage, 

 collected by Mr. Everett {mus. nostr.), on the label of which the sex is 

 marked male. Of ten examples of the large B. auritus, ex Malacca 

 {mus. nostr.), five are in a rufous-coloured dress, and the other five 

 are strongly tinged with grey above and below. I cannot discover 

 that the sexes corresponding to these two phases of plumage' have 

 ever been determined by collectors; but Mr. Gould {I.e.) conjec- 

 tured, some thirty-four years ago, that the rufous bird was the male, 

 and the greyer bird was either the female or the young— a conjecture 

 requiring confirmatory proof. With the exception of the male 

 symbol on Mr. Everett's Bornean rufous example of B. stellatus, the 

 little rehable evidence on record favours Professor Schlegel's genera- 

 lization. It must not be omitted to notice that Mr. Hume (Str. F. 

 ii. p. 349) has distinctly stated that " Mr. Hodgson's bird " (the type 

 of Otothrix hodgsoiii) " was certainly an adult female, by dissec- 

 tion ;" but we are left without any evidence (besides Mr. Hume's 

 statement) that this assertion is well founded ; there is nothing on 

 the label of the type specimen relating to the sex. Judging from 

 the following more recent observation of Mr. Hume {op. cit. iv. 

 p. 378) — " It is true that when I formerly wrote, I thought it (re- 

 lying on what Hodgson recorded) probable that hodgsoni was the 

 female, and castaneus the male," — it would appear that Mr. 

 Hodgson had recorded that he had ascertained by dissection that 



