AND BAZA CEYLONENSIS. 445 



tbink tliere is a doubt, bat that iliis is tbe same as Baza suma- 

 trensis; it is rather an older bird than the one I fic^ured/^ 



The (greater age of Mr. Hume's specimen is, I think, chiefly- 

 denoted by the presence of the chin and throat stripe, which 

 is wanting in the British Museum specimen.* This stripe may 

 perhaps be present in tbe type specimen, as the latter is des- 

 cribed by Lafresnaye as " siibtus gutture pectoreque pallide 

 rufescentibus, flammulis omfis et nigris variegatis "" which latter 

 words may possibly be intended to apply to the throat stripe, 

 though, if so, they do not describe it very cle^irly. 



As regards the specimen in the British Museum, it may be 

 remarked that the total length given by Mr. Wallace in the 

 Ihis for 1868, p. 19, and probably taken by him in the flesh, 

 agrees exactly with the corresponding measurement of Mr. 

 Hume's male bird as given in Stray Feathers from a note 

 recorded when that specimen was in the flesh, which strongly 

 confirms Mr. Hume's suggestion that the British Museum 

 fipecimen is in reality a male, and was wrongly sexed by the 

 Collector. 



I am also indebted to the kindness of Mr. Hume for the 

 loan of the Baza from the Wynaad, described at p. 151, Vol. 

 VII, of Stray Feathers for 1878. I have compared this skin 

 ■with two specimens of B. ceylonensis, which are preserved in 

 the Norwich Museum, and have no doubt as to its belonging 

 to that species ; it much resembles the younger of these two 

 specimens which was presented to the Museum by Mr. S. Bligh, 

 and is described at p. 95 of Captain Legge's " Birds of Ceylon," 

 but it appears to be a slightly older bird as is chiefly denoted 

 by the more rufous plumage of the crown of the head, the 

 longer crest, and by there being one Jess transverse bar on the 

 tail. 



Wat fafik.^.^ |hcasanl^ xrf ik iimalaps* 



In the October number of the Ihis, just received, appears 

 the following interesting paper by Captain G. F. L. Mar- 

 shall. 



" Pucrasia biddulphi, Sp. N. \ 



** Male. — ^Sides of the head and back of the neck, dark me- 

 tallic green, with a blue gloss towards the neck ; forehead and 



* The absence of the stripe is one of Mr. Sharpe's characters for this species. It 

 was the presence of this, and the fact, that my specimen, an undoubted male, was 

 as large as the alleged British Museum /ema^e, that made me doubt as to my birds 

 being really sumatrensis. — Ed. 



