573 



Note by Captain Hay, on a JBird, native of the Eastern Islands, 

 undescribed (?) in a Letter to the Editor. 



Kurnaul, June 7, 1841. 



My dear Sir, — If the following account of an extraordinary bird 

 met with among the Eastern Islands may prove new and interesting, 

 you will probably insert the following in your Journal : if otherwise, 

 destroy the communication. It is as far as I can see a new genus, 

 but distant as I am from books, or the means of access to new dis- 

 coveries, and not being in communication with Mr. Swainson, what 

 I insert is with diffidence. 



I can hardly describe the colours of this bird better than by saying, 

 it partakes of precisely the same met with in that well-known and 

 beautiful moth, the Bombyx Atlas, upon which insect it is supposed to 

 feed ; and it is not improbable, for their localities are the same, and it 

 will be seen how admirably adapted for a trap is its mouth. 



On first obtaining this very extraordinary bird, I commenced exa- 

 mining the generic distinction of" Eurylaimus," to which at first sight it 

 appeared to be most likely allied. The sombre colours, together with its 

 enormous bristles, seemed to point it out as a night-feeder, and sent me 

 to hunt amongst the " Caprimulgidae ;" but with the assistance of 

 Swainson's Birds, 2 vols, in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and of Vol. x. of 

 the Naturalist's Library, I have not been able to discover any named 

 genus, to which this very extraordinary, and I imagine very rare, bird 

 belongs. 



I have apparently two species, if they be not male and female ; the 

 length of one however being 16^ inches, whilst the other is not above 

 nine; and the larger coming from Sumatra, whilst the smaller was 

 procured from Malacca, lead me to believe them different species of the 

 same genus. 



General colour of plumage, different shades of chestnut and rufous 

 brown, or ferruginous. Wing coverts dark chestnut, tipped with angu- 

 lar white spots, shaded at the edges with black : the larger wing coverts 

 are tipped with black spots, the white edging being scarcely visible ; 

 the neck has a collar (resembling a pendent crest from the back of the 

 head) of similarly marked feathers, though less distinct. Whole of the 



4 c 



