PlKEnicoptenis Minor. 31 



I shall only add that I shall be very much oblig-ed by the 

 receipt of grey and black wag-tails from all parts of the 

 country, provided only that the sex, date, and locality are care- 

 fully noted for each specimen ; unless the two former parti- 

 culars, at any rate^ are given, the specimen would be of little 

 real use, 



A. O. H. 



IIjtKmcj)|tcrii5 llmar. Geoff. St. Ell 



p. Minor Geoff. St. Hil : Bull, 8oc : PMlom, 11, p. 97. P. Parvus, 

 Vieiil : Anal, p. 69, pi. col. 419 ; Gal. des. Ois b. 273. P. Minor, 

 Jerd. Cat. No. 374, P. Bubidus, Fielden, Ibis, 1868, p. 496. 



It is some years now since I first obtained from the Delhi Mu- 

 seum, a specimen of a small and specially I'osy flamingo, the shape 

 of whose bill (the upper mandible of which when closed sank 

 almost entirely within the lower mandible,) indicated it as un- 

 doubtedly specifically distinct from our larger Indian bird. Dr. 

 Jerdon and myself both carefully examined this bird, compared 

 it with the PI. col., and with descriptions in other works, and 

 came to the conclusion that it was P/mnicopterus Minor. A 

 year later Captain Fielden obtained three small brilliantly rosy 

 flamingoes, at Secunderabad, and described them under the speci- 

 fic name of Hudidiis, in the 3is for 1868. His birds were shot 

 in July. My bird, which was obtained in January, was one of six 

 brought in by native fowlers, who professed to have captured 

 them on the Sambhur Lake. 



In the /«5?> for 1869, p. 440, Mr. G. R. Gray added the 

 weight of his great authority to the distinctness of Captain 

 Fielden^s new species Rtihidios. He published at the same time 

 drawings of the head and bill of all the known species of flamin- 

 goesj and while separating Rubidus and Minor as belonging to 

 the same sub-genus, which he called Fhmniconaim, he thus 

 indicated the difference between the two supposed species. 



** Fig. 3, (Rubidus,) diffei-s from Fig, 8, (Minor,) by the pos- 

 terior margin of the lower mandible being very narrow and 

 then slig'htly curved to the lower surface, thus giving an appea r 

 anee of angulation. Fig. 8, (Minor,) 1ms on the other hand 

 the posterior margin of the lower mandible obliquely straight 

 and broad to the surface beneath ; the lateral edge of the lower 

 mandible has a prominent longitudinal channel on the basal 

 half, from which spring several less prominent ramificatiojis that 

 proceed upwards to the lateral margin." 



