104 NOVELTIES. 



by the projecting black velvety frontal plumes ; the tail is 

 much longer ; the upper surface, especially the head and rump, 

 is brighter and more purple ; the whole lower surface is black 

 or blackish, and there is no white on the tail. 



Another bird something the same style of colouring is Callene 

 frontalis, but this is much duller and blacker than our bird, has 

 no white about it, and has of course a much slenderer bill, 

 much larger legs and feet, and a shorter wing. 



It will doubtless be objected, that all the Hyloterpes, as yet 

 known, are smaller and slighter birds, of brown or brown and 

 yellow plumage. No doubt this is a prima facie argument 

 against my having assigned a correct place to this new species, 

 but all I can say is that having compared it very carefully with 

 M. grisola, bill, nostrils, bristles, wings, proportions of prima- 

 ries, tail, legs, feet, claws, the two appear to me to be generically 

 inseparable, and that grisola is structurally closer to cyanea than 

 it is to orpheus, Verr, (as figured by Jardine) or philippensis, 

 Walden, as figured in the Tr. Z. S. 



One point more — I have no copy of Belanger's voyage aux 

 Indes orientales, and I caunot therefore tell what Ajax diana of 

 Lesson may be ; but I gather from Lord Waldeu's remarks 

 (J. A. S. B. Ex. No. 1875, 101) that he considers this species 

 to be nothing but the Javan Brachypteryx albifrons. At the 

 same time it was said to have been obtained in Pegu, where, so 

 far as we yet know, albifrons does not occur. 



Siva sordida. 



Represents S. cyanouvoptera in the Tenasserim hilts; is altogether 

 duller coloured ; toants the white tip to the bastard wing, the white 

 margins to the secondaries, the white and black tips to the later secon- 

 daries and tertiaries and the white tips to the central tail feathers, 

 and has the entire back, scapulars, secondary and tertiary coverts 

 and outer webs of tertiaries, a dull earthy brown, without the faint- 

 est rusty or rufous tinge, which is confined to the upper tail-coverts 

 and rump, and even there is much feebler than in cjanouroptera. 



It is not without very careful comparison with very large 

 series of Himalayan specimens, that in this and other cases, 

 I have ventured to separate the Tenasserim forms. 



In this present case I have before me some fifty Himalayan 

 cyanouropteras and not one of them makes any approach to 

 the present species. The differences are doubtless small, but 

 they seem absolutely constant and the birds look very different, 

 although any one acquainted with the one, would at once 

 identify the other as its representative. 



