298 NOVELTIES. 



of this genus u ces oiseaux aux habitudes parfaitement seden- 

 taires et ne sachant guere voler, n'ont pas la faculte de se trans- 

 porter dans d'autres localites du lieu qui les a vu naitre." 



Now as regards those species which I have had most oppor- 

 tunities of observing, viz., moluccensis, P. L. S. Mill, (cj/anoptera, 

 Tern.) and coronata, P. L. S. Miil. (bengalensis, Gmel.) these 

 remarks are wholly erroneous. Both species are eminently 

 migratory, neither, at any rate within our limits, are ever found 

 at other seasons of the year anywhere in or near the locali- 

 ties in which they breed. Both yearly travel hundreds of 

 miles, to their breeding haunts, streaming up in tens of thou- 

 sands of pairs, all moving at about the same time, though not in 

 flocks. As to coronata, Layard and Jerdon and others have 

 recorded this years ago ; as to cyanoptera we have found this 

 the case during the past two years in Burmah ; they come up 

 from the Malay Peninsular and flood not only the Tenasserim 

 Provinces but the valley of the Irrawady, some at any rate 

 getting as high as Thayetmyo, and in this migration they 

 are accompanied by the nearly allied, but much larger billed 

 megarhynchus. Doria, too, I see, as quoted by Salvadori (Uccelli 

 de Borneo, p. 236) notices that in Borneo also they are migratory, 

 no specimen having been obtained at Sarawak before October, 

 though not rare there in that month, November and December. 



In this same livraison Professor Schlegel remarks that P. 

 cyanea, Blyth, appears to be only the adult of P. {Hydrornis) 

 nip/alensis, Hodgs. It is surprising that so eminent an ornitho- 

 logist should advance such a proposition in 1874. We have 

 found both species breeding and have numerous specimens of 

 both from the nestling to the perfect adult and certainly no 

 two allied species can possibly be more clearly distinct. * 



Prionochilus modestus, Sp. Nov. 



Sexes alike. Above dull olive green ; below olive grey, and yellowish 

 white, streakily mingled. 



To the list of Prionochili, already known, percussus, Tern., 

 maculatus, Tern, aureolimbatus, Wall., obsoletus, Mull, and Sehl., 

 xanthopygius, Salvad., and Vincens, Sclat., we must now add the 

 present dull-colored but fairly typical species from S. Tenas- 

 serim. Thoracicus, I have been unable to examine and cannot 

 therefore say whether it should rightly find a place in this 

 genus, or be separated under Reichenbach's name of Anaimos, 

 but in regard to Pachyglossa melanoxantha, Hodgson, recently 



