670 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON BIRDS [June 18, 



XII. Sciurus pusillus. (Plate XLI.) 



Sciurus pusillus, Geoffroy apud Desmarest, Mamm. p. 337, 

 til. lxxvii. fig. 2(1820). ^ t 



*Jlfacro*«* AwMi, Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, xx. 



p. 433 (1867). 



Hah. Guiana ; Brazil. , 



Length about 4'50 inches, of tail-vertebrse 3 inches. Two upper 

 premolars. Upper parts greyish olive, the hairs dusky, very mi- 

 nutely tipped with pale fulvous ; lower parts only slightly paler ; tail 

 black, washed with whitish or pale yellow. 



I was not able to ascertain the type of Geoffroy s S. pusillus in 

 the Paris Museum ; but there can hardly be a doubt of its identity 

 with specimens standing under that name in the British museum, and 

 with the types of Grav's Macroxus Jcuhtii. All these are supposed by 

 Mr Allen to be merely very young individuals of S. astuans , in spite 

 of Buffon'sobservations on the development of the reproductive organs 

 in the type of S. pusillus 2 . The British-Museum specimens, however, 

 a"ree in size with Buffon's and Desmarest's descriptions, and are-aefe •„ j,.M 

 •a* quite adult, as shown by their skulls and teeth ; moreover the two 

 specimens examined differ" from S. cestuans in the possession ot two 

 upper premolars. Their very small size and the nearly uniform 

 greyish olive of both their upper and lower parts prevent their being 

 confounded with any other species known to me. The type ot 

 M. kuhlii, collected in Brazil by Castelnau, merely differs in having 

 a white spot at the root of each ear, and in the extreme tips ot the 

 hairs of the tail being white instead of pale fulvous. 



2. On a third Collection of Birds made by the Rev. G. Brown, 

 C.M.Z.S., in the Duke-of-York Group of Islands and its 

 vicinity. By P. L. Sclater, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., 

 Secretary to the Society. 



[Received June 11, 1878.] 

 (Plate XLII.) 



I have now the pleasure of submitting to the Society a third 3 col- 

 lection of birds made by our Corresponding Member the Rev. J. 

 Brown, in the group of islands known generally as the Duke-ot-lork 

 Islands, and on the adjacent islands of New Britain and New 



Ireland. , . . 



The collection was forwarded from Port Hunter, the missionary 

 station in the Duke-of-York group, on the 24th of February last by 

 a small trading-steamer bound for Hongkong. It contains a series 



« Tom. tit. p. 759. » Hist. Na t. Suppl. m p. 264 



3 For notices of two previous collections, see P. Z. S. 18/ 1, p. 9b, and 1878, 

 p. 289. 



