THE GENUS PORPHYRIO AND ITS SPECIES. 19 



Believing that my materials are sufficient to give a tolerably 

 correct idea of the specific value of the styles presented by the 

 species in the various localities in which it is found, I am obliged 

 to state that I can find nothing to indicate more than one species, 

 possessing a slight difference in the dimensions and colouration 

 of individual birds, and I have therefore placed all those forms 

 described as distinct, among the synonyms. 



According to Layard, this bird is pretty common and 

 generally distributed in Feegee. It eats small fish, crabs, insects, 

 sugarcane and berries, and to get the latter it perches on trees. 

 It is easily kept in confinement, but rather dangerous to other 

 birds, and a pair he had having been placed too near a cage 

 containing some young parrots, drew them through the bars 

 and picked out their brains. 



The adult has the occiput, sides of the face and chin, black ; 

 mantle and sides of neck, flanks, breast, thighs and abdomen, 

 (except in the centre), dark violet blue ; shoulders of wings 

 greenish blue ; wings, green ; primaries black, with the outer 

 webs bluish-green, changing to emerald-green in certain lights • 

 secondaries, bluish-black, the innermost ones with a greenish 

 shade ; back and upper parts blackish or olive brown, with dark 

 blue or greenish reflexions ; under tail-coverts pure white ; bill, 

 frontal plate, legs and feet, crimson. The anterior lateral portions 

 of the frontal plate extending to the nostrils, orange in the skin. 



In some specimens, the thighs are greenish-blue, like the 

 shoulders, but this does not appear to be anything more than 

 an individual variation, as others from the same locality have 

 the thighs violet blue, as described above. The following are 

 the dimensions of several individuals from various places : — 



A lithograph is here given of the heads of P. ealvus, (type) and 

 of another individual, both from Java to show variation in size. 



5.— Porphyrio ccelestis. 



Porphyrio coslestis, Swinhoe, Ibis. (1868), p. 59. — Id. Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. (1870), p. 428; (1871), p. 414,— David and Oust. 

 Ois. de la Chine (1877), p. 484. 



