and Rectifications of Syyionymy. 35 



{glottoides) , G. stagnatilis, Terekia cinerea, Falcinellus igneus, 

 Mycteria australis, and Ardetta flavicollis, all of which are more 

 or less common in Bengal in the cold season ; and to their number 

 may be added several others^ most of which I long ago identified 

 in my Catalogue of the Birds in the Calcutta Museum. 



Glottis glottoides (Vigors), adopted by Mr. Gould, is merely 

 the winter dress of G. chloropus (Meyer), the common European 

 and Indian Greenshauk*. 



Himantopus leucocephalus, Gould. Examples of this bird 

 quite similar to those figured in the ' Birds of Australia,' and to 

 others which I have seen from this region, are not unfrequently 

 obtainable in Lower Bengal in the same flocks with the common 

 H. candidus (seu melanopterus) . Great numbers of Longshanks 

 are brought to the Calcutta provision-bazaar, often several 

 dozens of them of a morning, during the season of their stay. 

 Of these the great majority have a sooty-brown occiput, which 

 changes to black at the approach of the breeding-season ; but 

 occasionally one then occurs with a purely white head and neck, 

 or with more or less black down the nape, sometimes a mere 

 trace of it, and sometimes the black nape is well developed 

 (though never to the extent that is constant in the American 

 species), and this may or may not be accompanied by the black 

 occiput. I have also seen purely white-headed and white-naped 

 specimens from Egypt, and one male from that country with 

 just an indication of the dark nape; there is one with black 

 nape and occiput among the British-killed specimens in the 

 British Museum, and I have seen others like it from Europe 

 and North Africa. Whether the leucocephalus type be constant 

 in Australia remains to be ascertained ; and the most likely ex- 

 planation of this extraordinary and anomalous variation is, that 

 differentiated races of this bird have more or less commingled. 

 Most assuredly it can neither be referred to difference of age 

 nor of season. 



Limosa melanuroides, Gould. This I consider to be merely a 

 small-sized male of L. aegocephalus. Examples of this size may 

 be procured abundantly in Bengal, with others (females) much 



* Mr. Swinhoe, I observe, identifies Tringa empusa, Gould, with T. 

 hypoleucos. 



d2 



