650 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. tol. 48. 



to the generally darker coloration, the breast of Entomoihera coromanda 

 minor is more suffused with magenta than in Entomothera coromanda 

 coromanda. The Borneo race is also much darker both above and 

 below than is Entomothera coromanda neophora from Sumatra, with 

 more magenta suffusion on the breast, and, furthermore, averages 

 slightly smaller. It is smaller than Entomothera coromanda pagana, 

 and has darker lower parts. The colors of the unfeathered portions, 

 taken from a Singapore specimen, are as follows: "Iris dark brown; 

 eyelids, bill, and feet red." 



Birds from the island of Singapore are apparently the same as 

 those from Borneo, if anything a little darker; and thus decidedly dif- 

 ferent from the light-colored Entomoihera coromanda coromanda from 

 Malacca on the near-by mainland of the Malay Peninsula. This bears 

 out what we have noted in some other groups of birds regarding the 

 tendency of Singapore to have faunal affinity with Sumatra or Borneo 

 rather than with the Malay Peninsula, a very interesting fact, in view 

 of the proximity of the Malay Peninsula and the comparative remote- 

 ness of both Sumatra and Borneo. A single immature specimen 

 from Tataan, on Tawi Tawi Island, in the southwestern part of the 

 Philippine Archipelago, is apparently typical of Entomoihera coro- 

 manda minor. 



The only name applicable to the present subspecies is Alcedo 

 {Halcyon) coromanda minor Temminck and Schlegel. 1 This was 

 based on specimens from Borneo and Sumatra, but without designa- 

 tion of type or type locality. By reason of the present subspeciflc 

 separation of the Sumatra bird from that of Borneo, 2 it becomes 

 necessary to restrict the name Alcedo coromanda minor to one or the 

 other of these. In order to determine, if possible, which locality 

 Doctor Schlegel considered typical, I wrote to Dr. E. D. van Oort, 

 who is now in charge of the famous ornithological collection of the 

 Ley den Museum, asking if the type of Alcedo coromanda minor was 

 in the museum. His reply is as follows: 



The type-specimens of ' Dacelo coromandeliana minor ' Schlegel are the three ones 

 mentioned on page 26 of Schlegel's Catalogue of the 'Alcedines ' of the Mus. d'Hist. 

 Nat. des Pays-Bas. None of them is marked by him as ' type.' 



Since the two most important characters given by Temminck and 

 Schlegel * to separate their Alcedo coromanda minor from their Alcedo 

 coromanda major of Japan — small size and dark rich coloration — best 

 apply to the bird from Borneo, it therefore seems best to fix on this 

 the name Alcedo coromanda minor; and we accordingly designate 

 Pontianak, Borneo, as the type locality, which is the locality of the 

 second of the three specimens catalogued by Schlegel, 3 as mentioned 

 above in the quotation from Dr. E. D. van Oort. 



i Fauna Japonica, 1842, p. 76. 



2 See p. 646. 



3 Mus. d'Hist. Nat. Pays-Bas, vol. 3, Mon. 17, Alcedines, 1863, p. 26. 



