112 Asiatic Society. [No. 121. 



have no trace whatever of the second band, and seldom any spotting in front of the 

 neck, but a patch on the flanks (a little anterior to the thighs) is equally developed in 

 both sexes.* 



Cuculus fugax, Horsfield, or Bychan Cuckoo of Latham ; C. Lathami, Gray and 

 Hardwicke, or Bhrow Cuckoo of the latter, being evidently a mode of spelling the 

 Bengalee form of the Hindee word for "great," which is applied by the natives to 

 this species in contradistinction to certain others/ as more especially the C. tenuiro- 

 stris, Gray and Hardwicke, which latter, I may remark, is not identical with C. Son- 

 nerati, vel Himalayanus, Vigors, as supposed by Mr. Jerdon, but is the same as his 

 doubtfully cited C. fiavus, this again being quite different from the C. Jfavus, Aucto- 

 rum. Upon another occasion, I will endeavour to elucidate the various Indian and 

 Malayan species of the family Cuculidce. 



Calliope Lathami, Gould (Icones Avium) ; Motacilla Calliope, Pallas ; Turdus Cal- 

 liope, Latham ; Accentor ! Calliope, Temminck. A beautiful male, added to the fe- 

 male which was exhibited at the last meeting. This bird extends eastward to Kamts- 

 chatka and Japan. It is not included in any of the published catalogues of the 

 species of Southern India ; but Lieut. Tickell notices it in his ' List of birds collected 

 in the Jungles of Borabhum and Dholbhum* (J. A. S. ii. 575^, as " rare, solitary, 

 and silent. Haunts thickets and underwood. Was found at Dampera in Dholbhum, 

 and at Jehanabad, west of Hoogly." As we had a specimen previously in the Mu- 

 seum, in addition to those now obtained, it is probably not very rare in the vicinity 

 of Calcutta during the hyemal months. 



Salicaria (Selby, subdivision Acrocephalus, Naumann, v. Calamoherpe, Boie,) 

 turdoides (?) ; Turdus arundinaceus (?), Lin. ; Agrubates brunnescens, Jerdon, Mad. 

 Jour. No. xxv. 269. This appears to me, judging from memory, to be the Sylvia 

 turdoides of Temminck, which according to that naturalist extends eastward as far as 

 Japan. I have seen a specimen that was purchased in the London market, where, 

 however, it may have been brought from Holland ; the species not having been hither- 



* In the same work in which Mr. Swainson has elevated the male of this bird to 

 the rank of a different species from the female, finding, as he says, "so strong a spe- 

 cific distinction," he startles the common-place observer by characterising " the Spot- 

 ted-winged Pintado, or Guinea-hen, (Numida maculipennis, Swainson). All the authors 

 we have consulted agree," he informs us, '' in stating that the common Pintado, or 

 Guinea-fowl, has the greater quills of the wings white, and although we have not, at 

 this moment, an opportunity of verifying this, it cannot fur a moment be reasonably 

 doubted that such is the universal character of the species (! ! \). That, however, 

 which we shall now record, has the whole of the primaries spotted on a blackish ground, 

 precisely with the same pattern, and in the same manner, with the lesser quills. This 

 is the only material difference we can detect between the bird before us and the 

 ample descriptions which have leen published of the common species. Of this latter, 

 however, we have procured some feathers, which enable us to state, that those of 

 the lesser quills and of the back are spotted [in a manner] precisely similar to those 

 of our present bird. The difference, however, of ihe qniUs is so important, that it is 

 alone sufficient to separate them as species" ! ! ! What a pity " the first Ornitholo- 

 gist of any age" did not defer the publication of the above until he had visited some 

 poulterer's shop, or farm-yard ! He would then have found that domestic Guinea- 

 fowl with spotted primaries are at least as common as those with white ones, while 

 among the latter he would have remarked that scarcely any two agreed in the quantity 

 of white exhibited, a variation, too, of all others wherein any but a mere pretender to 

 the rank of a philosophic naturalist would have paused before venturing to embnrthen 

 science after such a fashion. 



