ON THE GENUS PTILOPUS. 341 



'' (I) The end of the tail of P. insoUtus bears on its upper surface a 

 broad grey band, about 30 miUimetres long, which is uniform green in P. 

 jobiensis.'' [Each feather is edged with yellowish green. — G. D. R.] 



" (2) The patches on the upper parts of P. jobiensis are blue, with a 

 violet tinge ; they are whitish grey in P. insoUtus. 



" (3) P. insoUtus is considerably larger than P. jobiensis ; for instance, 

 wings 135 and 110 millims., tail about 100 and 70 millims. 



"' I therefore cannot agree w^ith Prof. Schlegel, but am obliged to take 

 it as a good species. 



'' Dr. Finsch, in the year 1874, in his enumeration of the Ptilonopi from 

 the Pacific islands (P. Z. S. p. 94), does not mention P. insoUtus. I therefore 

 presume that he accepted Prof. SchlegeFs view. 



"On the other hand. Count Salvadori, in his Prodr. Orn. Pap. (Ann. d. 

 Mus. Civ. Gen. ix. 1876-77), does not mention the species sub P. jobiensis^ 

 Schl. (p. 198) — a fact which makes me suppose that perhaps he does not 

 share Prof. Schlegel' s view% or, at least, that he never saw P. insoUtus. 



" Now as to the habitat of P. insoUtus. Schlegel's short note thereon 

 has been quoted above ; and its meaning seems to me to be that he himself 

 has some doubt of the correctness of the statement. Later, in the monograph 

 of the Columbce (Mus. P.-B. 1873, p. 17), when enumerating the specimen 

 sub P. humeraUs jobiensis^ he even omits the doubted locality, and only 

 says : — ' 5. Individu type du Ptilopus insoUtus^ acquis en 1862.' 



" It seems an unfortunate circumstance that neither am I able to give 

 the exact habitat of the species ; for the two specimens in question recently 

 arrived in a small collection of birds sent from Manilla, containing skins from 

 very distant points of the East. For instance, besides birds from Cebu, it 

 contained: — Ptilopus perousei (Peale), Halcyon recurvirostris (Lafr.), Coriphilus 

 fringillaceus (Gm.), and others, apparently from Samoa ; the rare Carpophaga 

 rubricera^ G. R. Gray, probably from New Ireland or the Salomon Islands ; 

 further, some birds decidedly from New Guinea or some island in its 

 vicinity, &c. I therefore can neither confirm New Caledonia as the habitat 



