170 Notes on various Indian and Malayan Birds. [No. 122, 



Among the racket-tailed species in the Asiatic Society's Museum, 

 I distinguish the following i — 



E. grandis, Gould, P. Z. S., 1836, 5 ; Cometes (olim ChibiaJ Malaba- 

 roides, Hodgson, Ind. Rev., 1837, 325 ,• E. Malabaricus, Shaw's Zoology, 

 VII, 293, and figured in Stephens's Appendix to the same, Vol. XIII, 

 Part II, 140, which figure is taken from Latham's General History of 

 Birds, II, 57, where it would seem to have been copied from one of Lady 

 Impey's drawings alluded to in the text, as differing somewhat from 

 the species there described. Shaw erroneously identifies his bird with 

 " le Grand Gobe-mouche de la cote de Malabar" of Sonnerat (Voy. 

 iv, 162) ; and Sonnerat identifies his species as that noticed by Buffon 

 " sous le nom de Drongo de la cote de Malabar :" referring then to 

 Buffon (Oiseaux, iv, 587), we read, " On trouve aussi une espece de 

 Drongo, a la cote de Malabar, d'ou il nous a eU envoy 6 par M. Sonnerat ; 

 il est un peu plus grand que celui de Madagascar ou de la Chine ; il a 

 comme eux le plumage entierement noir \ mais il a le bee plus fort 

 et plus epais, il manque de huppe, et le charactere qui le distingue le 

 plus, consiste" in the prolonged shafts of the exterior tail-feathers, &c. 

 Hence the Malabar Shrike of Sonnerat, or Malabar Drongo of Buffon, 

 is not the Lanius Malabaricus of Shaw, who informs us, that " on the 

 head, springing immediately above the base of the upper mandible, 

 is a large rising tuft, consisting of many plumes of different lengths, and 

 much resembling that of the Rose-coloured Ousel" now this applies 

 distinctly to the E. grandis, Gould, wherein the frontal feathers recline 

 backward over the occiput ; but it will not apply to the species referred 

 to by Mr. Gould as E. Malabaricus, which again is different from that 

 of Sonnerat and Buffon ; the latter being probably the E. Rangoonensis, 

 Gould, which, it may be suspected, is also Mr. Jerdon's species. Under 

 these circumstances, I conceive that the specific term Malabaricus had 

 much better be disused altogether, for which reason I have headed this 

 notice with the more appropriate name bestowed on the present species 

 by Mr. Gould. The following is a description of the specimen before 

 me. Length, to extremity of penultimate tail feathers, 14 inches; of 

 wing from bend 6f inches ; of middle tail feather 5^ inches; of penultimate 

 6f inches, and the shaft of the outermost extending 8 inches beyond,having 

 the terminal 3f inches barbed externally, but towards the tip only on the 

 inner web, and spiring inward till the under-surface becomes uppermost 



