

74 



chrysogenys ; but its large size, the proportionally shorter and stouter bill, and the flattened form 

 of the culmen between the nostrils, at once characterize it. 



Messrs. Hume and Davison write : — " We believe the Great Yellow-eared Spider-hunter does 

 not extend so far north as Tenasserim ; for we have never succeeded in obtaining a specimen 

 there, and from its large size it is not easily overlooked. A. chrysogenys, which does occur 

 in the south of Tenasserim, has probably been mistaken for it. In the neighbourhood of 

 Malacca, at Kuroo, Choharg, Pulo Seban, at Johore, and other localities in the Malay peninsula, 

 it is not uncommon. 



" The greater number of our specimens were obtained about some cocoanut-trees then in 

 blossom, in an old deserted Chinese clearing fifteen miles from the town of Johore. On the 

 cocoanut inflorescence they always perch to suck ; but in the case of other flowers they often poise 

 themselves, on rapidly fluttering wings, in front of the blossoms on whose nectar they are 

 feeding. 



"The males are very much larger than the females. 



"Male. Length 8-G2 to 8-8 inches, expanse 13T2 to 1412, tail from vent 2T to 2-5, 

 wing 4-25 to 4-55, tarsus 0-85 to 0-95, bill from gape 1-7 to 1*85 ; weight 1-75 ounce. 



" Female. Length 7-75 to 8*25, expanse 11-5 to 12-75, tail from vent 1-82 to 2-2, wing 

 3-82 to 4, tarsus - 8 to 0*85, bill from gape TG to T65 ; weight 1-25 to 1*5 ounce. 



" Of our numerous specimens, killed from August to November, the colouring of the soft 

 parts were as follows : — Legs and feet yellowish or reddish ochre, claws horny brown ; upper 

 mandible black or blackish brown, lower mandible pale brown or pale reddish brown, gape 

 whitish or pinkish white ; irides deep brown, edge of the eyelids greenish black." 



Excepting in the southern half of the Malay peninsula, it appears to be by no means a 

 common species. 



In Sumatra it has been collected by Mr E. C. Buxton in the south of the island, in the 

 Lampong district; and his specimens are, as the Marquis of Tweeddale informs us, identical with 

 typical examples. 



In Borneo it appears to be a rare bird, restricted, as far as we yet know, to the neighbour- 

 hood of Sarawak, where Doria and Beccari only collected a single specimen, and where, quite 

 recently, Mr. Henry Everett has again procured it. The specimens from this island appear to 

 be peculiarly small. One of Mr. Everett's specimens, from Sarawak, in my own collection, 

 measures — length 6'7 inches, culmen 1*55, wing 3-8, tail 2, tarsus 0*8 ; and the specimen recorded 

 from the same locality by Count Salvadori is likewise of small size ; but they are not, in my 

 opinion, on that account, to be separated from the Malacca bird, as they are perfectly identical 

 in plumage. 



Another small specimen, collected by Mr. Davison at Malacca in July 1877, has been sepa- 

 rated by Mr. Hume as a distinct species, on account of the peculiar form of its bill : — " Extremely 

 like A. flavigaster, Ey ton, but smaller, somewhat yellower above and below, with a much smaller 

 bill, and distinguished at once by the rami of the lower mandible not meeting to form the angle 

 of the gonys till within 0-6 of the point. 



" Dimensions (from skin) — length 6"5, wing 3'8, tail 2-0, tarsus about 0-9, bill at front from 

 forehead 1-3." 



