24 a 

 Variety TALAUTENSIS. 

 (THE TALAUT VARIETY.) 



Eos histrio talautensis, A. B. Meyer and L. W. Wiglesworth, Journal fur Ornithologie, 

 1894, p. 240. 



Dr. Meyer and Mr. "Wiglesworth have found certain differences between their specimens of 

 Eos histrio from the Talaut and those from the Sanghir Islands, which have induced them to 

 erect the former into a subspecies talautensis. 



We do not like " subspecies," and have very carefully done our best to see whether this 

 Talaut form could be ranked as a species ; but it is impossible for us to regard it as more than 

 a variety. Its distinction, even as a subspecies, from Eos histrio is made to depend on the 

 greater extent of red on the wing and on the black marks of the secondaries being narrower. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild has been so kind as to lend us two fine specimens of Meyer's 

 Eos histrio talautensis, and these we have carefully compared with the skins, both of Eos 

 histrio and Eos challengeri, which are preserved in the National Collection. We have found 

 a considerable amount of variation as to the extent of red on the wings and the dimensions 

 of the black markings in the specimens of Eos histrio ; and, as we have already noted, the two 

 specimens of this species collected by Dr. Wallace in the Sanghir Islands differ notably as 

 to the extent of blue on the breast. As this character (the blue being, or not being, mixed 

 with red on the breast) * is that which is given as distinctive of Eos challengeri, it is with 

 reluctance that we enumerate the latter as a distinct species. 



The single specimen of Eos histrio which was collected by Mr. S. J. Hickson iu the 

 Talaut Islands does not, in our eyes, differ more from the Sanghir Island skins than these do 

 from one another. Mr. Rothschild's two specimens have blue on the breast to the extent 

 found normally in Eos histrio. 



The outer margin of the outer primaries is entirely black in one specimen of E. chal- 

 lengeri ; in the second there is a minute trace of red on the outer border of the first primary, 

 and this is more visible in the third skin. Of the skins of E. histrio only one shows a trace 

 of this tint, which is rather more marked in the Talaut Island specimen and in those lent us 

 by Mr. Rothschild ; but this difference is very minute, and if the forms from Sanghir and 

 the more distant Meangis Islands can hardly be separated, it does not seem probable that 

 those from the much nearer Talaut Islands can really be distinct. 



* In our description of Eos challengeri (on the next page but one) the word " head " has unfortunately been printed 

 instead of " breast." It should read : " upper part of the breast red, mixed with blue," and " the breast is not blue only 

 but a mixture of red and blue," &c., p. 25, lines 7 and 10. 



