720 Birds of Celebes: Rallidae. 



Distribution. Prom Java and S. E. Borneo to Australia, Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand, vary- 

 ing locally in almost every spot. 



The type of Porphyrio calvus was described from Java by Vieillot in 1819 

 fN. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. XXVIII, 28). A year later it received the name P. indicus 

 from Horsfield, and Vieillot's name was overlooked, nntil Mr. Elliot (e 1) 

 reinstated it in 1878. Next Temminck in 1826, intimating that he had no 

 intention of abandoning his MS name in the Leyden Museum for that of 

 Horsfield, published the name smaragdinus for the same bird. Schlegel (c 1) 

 indicates two examples in the Leyden Museum from Java as Temminck's 

 types. 



The Blue Coot seems to vary racially in almost every island of the East 

 Indies and Australasia, but it also varies very much individually, and with age 

 and sex, upon which some light is thrown by the good series from N. Celebes 

 in the Dresden Museum. With a hundred specimens from a hundred different 

 localities it might be possible to define a hundred different "species"; but, were 

 each locality represented by a score of adult birds, we do not believe that any 

 race could be clearly marked off from its next neighbours. Local races exist, 

 but individual variation is so great that it obliterates the characters which are 

 bound to the locality. 



In Java the bird is generally noteworthy for the greenish tint of the 

 light blue of its jugulum; in the Siamese and Malayan Peninsula it has a 

 greyish throat and face (P. edwardsi Elliot'; in S. E. Borneo a young specimen 

 examined by Prof. W. Blasius was of very small size; in South Celebes the 

 bird, according to Sharpe, is less green than in Java; in North Celebes it is 

 also less gTeen, purer blue on the jugulum, and larger; in Coram, as Schlegel 

 says (c 1), it is darker and less green-brown above (P. melanoptera Temm.', and 

 Count Salvadori (Orn. Pap. Ill, 252) adds that it is larger here in size, with 

 a different shield (a most untrustworthy character), and without the malachite 

 tint on the jugulum, etc.; New Guinean birds are united with the Moluccan 

 ones by Count Salvadori; they are rather dark, but, judging from two before 

 us, cannot be distinguished from many from North Celebes; in the Admiralty 

 Islands the bird is said to be greener again above like the Javan form, but 

 bigger and with a different shield (P. ellioti Salvad.j; in New Britain it is greener 

 above than in Java and smaller than in the Admiralty Islands (P. neobrittanicus 

 Meyer); the Pelew Islands harbour a very similar form with more blue on the 

 primaries, and the breast and under-parts apparently more uniform (P. peleivensis 

 H. &F.); the birds inhabiting the Fiji Islands were held by Drs. Finsch and 

 Hartlaub to be more olive above than calvus and less brilliant blue on the neck 

 and breast (P. vitiensis Peale); in Samoa the bird tends to still lighter olive 

 (P. samoensis Peale); from Aneiteum in the New Hebrides Canon Tristram 

 has described a larger bird as half-way between P. calvus and melanonotus of 

 Australin and New Zealand (P. aneiteumensis) ; Vate in the New Hebrides has 



