BIRDS FROM THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. 165 



glossy. Underside of the wing-feathers brownish, white spots on the basal 

 third of the inner webs forming a band. Tail of Dicrurns-like shape ; short 

 outer rectrices spotted, and partly banded with white. On the thighs a 

 thick plumage of splendidly white feathers wdth greyish base. (One white 

 feather on the neck appears not to constitute a specific character*.) Bill 

 black. Feet blackish above, light below. 



Total length 265 millims., wing 140, tail 155, bill 19, tarsus 16. 



Hab. Batjan, Moluccas. 



The single specimen which the Dresden Museum possesses was procured 

 by one of the hunters in my service, on the island of Batjan. It is marked 

 "female." 



No species of the genus Surniculus was till recently known to occur 

 more to the east than Borneo, where the wide-spreading S. luguhris (Horsf.) 

 resides, which ranges from India, through Ceylon and Malacca, Java, and 

 Sumatra, to Borneo (^see Schlegel, Mus. P.-B. Cucidi, 1864, p. 28, and 

 Salvadori, Ann. Mus. Civ. Gen. 1874, v. p. 63). Sharpe has described a 

 new species of Surniculus from Malamaui, in the south of Mindanao (see 

 Trans. Linn. Soc. ser. 2, Zoology, vol. i. 1877, p. 320), viz. S. velutinus ; and 

 it is therefore not to be wondered at that we find the genus represented in 

 the Moluccas, which (viz. Halmahera) are not very far from Mindanao. 



Surniculus velutimis appears to agree a good deal with S. musschenhroehi ; 

 but the former is much (about 3 inches) smaller. S. musschenbroeki is also 

 remarkably larger than S. luguhris, the size of the wings of which species 

 Salvadori (J. c.) gives as 120 millims. (140 in S. musschenbroeki), of the 

 tail as 10 millims. (15*5 in S. musschenbroeki) ; Schlegel (/. c.) states that the 

 wings and tail vary between 4" 4'" and 5" 2'", and 4" 3'" and 4" 1 1'", respectively, 



* Some specimens of Surniculus lugubris (Horsf.) also show a white neck-feather^ which rises 

 to a real specific character in Caliechthrus leucolophus (Miill.), from New Guinea, with its white 

 crown and neck. 



