176 VISCOUNT WALDEN ON THE BIRDS 



the rest of the under plumage, with the under tail-coverts and the rump and upper 

 tail-coverts, has two or more broad, almost pure white, transverse bands on each 

 feather. The black lores are faintly indicated by a darker shade of plumbeous. This 

 is the phase described by Lesson {I. c), and represented in the eighth plate of the 

 ' Voyage de 1' Astrolabe.' It is also the phase figured by D'Aubenton, only that in the 

 ' Planches Enluminees ' the lores are exhibited as black. Two other examples differ : — 

 one in the black and white feathers extending higher up on the breast, and being 

 more numerous on the rump ; the other in their becoming less distinct — that is, 

 passing into the fully adult phase. 



The Negros example ( S fide Meyer) has the whole of the under plumage, from the 

 chin, barred transversely white and black ; and the black and white feathers on the 

 uropygium expend to the middle of the back. This individual, I believe, represents 

 the youngest of the three phases of plumage. It has not hitherto been described or 

 figured. The dimensions of all six examples nearly agree. 



D'Aubenton's plate, no. 629, first made this species known to science. The individual 

 then figured was brought to Paris by Sonnerat {teste Month, torn. cit. p. 82). With 

 it Sonnerat also brought the individual represented by D'Aubenton on plate 630, and 

 on which Gmelin founded his Corvus pafpiiensis. Unfortunately Montbeillai-d did not 

 state the localities where Sonnerat procured either of the two species. The one, how- 

 ever, figured on the 630th plate is undoubtedly an exclusively Papuan form ; and being 

 so, we can with much certainty infer that it was obtained by Sonnerat from some part 

 of the Papuan subregion during his only visit to the Papuan Islands, namely in the 

 year 1772. The expedition which Sonnerat accompanied when he visited those islands, 

 and which had left the Isle of France on the 29th of June, 1771, had previously, from 

 the beginning of September 1771 to the beginning of February 1772, explored the 

 Philippine Islands ; and Sonnerat seems to have never again travelled in the Philippine 

 archipelago. He returned to France in 1772 ; and D'Aubenton's plates were published 

 prior to 1775'. After this date Sonnerat returned to the East and visited India, 

 Malacca, and China. The subject of PI. Enl. 629 was therefore procured during 

 Sonnerat's first voyage, either along with that of PI. Enl. 630 (C. papuensis, Gra.) in 

 the Papuan Islands, or else previously in one of the Philippines. No known Papuan 

 Graucalus agrees with the bird figured in plate 629 ; but the female or young male of 

 the common Philippine species does completely agree with it. I therefore without 

 hesitation identify Le Choucas de la Nouvelle Guinee, D'Aubent., pi. 629, with the 

 Philippine Cuckoo-shrike. Leaving out G. swainsonii, Gould, it being an Australian 



' I am unable to fix the exact publishing-date of PI. Enl. 629 & 630 ; but as these plates are quoted by 

 MontbeLUard in the third volume of the first edition of the 'Histoire Naturelle," which is dated 1775, the 

 examples brought to Paris by Sonnerat must have been obtained during his first voyage (that is, his voyage to 

 the Philippines and New Guinea), and not during his second voyage, when he visited Malacca at some period 

 subsequent to 1776, the year when he lelt Europe for the second time. 



