1842.] Asiatic Society. 587 



Recurvirostra Avocetta : fine specimens. 



Botaurus stellaris. The European Bittern, a handsome female. 



Pluvianus cinereus, Nobis; being the sixth Indian species of this genus with which 

 I am acquainted : length of a female 14 inches, by 1\ feet in extent ; wing from bend 

 9| inches, and tail 4§ inches ; bill to forehead \\ inch, and bare part of tibia the 

 same ; tarse 3 inches. Irides dilute red, with a cast of brown ; orbital skin, small frontal 

 lobes, basal three-fifths of the bill, and the legs, bright yellow ; the rest of the bill 

 black, as are also the claws. General colour of the upper parts pale greyish-brown, 

 the head, neck, and breast, pure light grey, passing into black on the lower part of 

 the breast, which terminates abruptly, contrasting with the white belly; primaries, 

 their coverts, and the winglet, black ; the secondaries and their coverts chiefly white, 

 and the tertiaries concolorous with the back : upper tail-coverts white, slightly tinged 

 with brownish ; and tail pure white, having a black subterminal band, broad on its 

 medial feathers, nearly obsolete on the penultimate, and quite so on the outermost. 

 This species is new to the Museum, and I have seen but this one specimen. 



Rallus gularis, Horsfield. Beautiful specimens. 



Phalacrocorax pygmceus, Auct. 



Rhynchea picta. I merely notice this handsome species, a fine series of which has 

 been put up, to remark that an affinity which I long ago detected and commented 

 upon, between this genus and the American Heliornis, is strikingly manifested by the 

 living Rhynchea. The style of colouring and markings correspond, and the Ameri- 

 can genus is styled Heliornis (or Sun Bird), from its habit of spreading out the wings 

 and tail, upon surprise, and so forming with them a sort of radiated disk, whereon the 

 elegant markings are beautifully displayed. The same habit is observable in Rhyn- 

 chea, which thus shews off its spotted markings to the admiration of the beholder, me- 

 nacing the while with a hissing sound and neck contracted, when suddenly, seizing 

 a favourable opportunity, it darts away upon the wing. Mr, Gray (in P. Z. S., 1831, 

 62,) has attempted to define two alleged species of Indian Rhynchea by the names 

 Picta and Capensis, the former only of which he had himself seen from Africa as well 

 as from India and China; but he refers to Savigny's figure of Rh. Capensis, in the 

 Oiseaux d'Egypte, as furnishing a faithful representation of the other. Should they 

 be different, however, the attempted definitions need to be rendered more intelligible, 

 as neither comparison of them with specimens, nor of the latter with Savigny's figure, 

 has enabled me to decide to which the Bengal bird should be referred, and certainly 

 the considerable number which I have seen and examined of this latter were all of the 

 same species. Among a number of African and Indian specimens of birds identical 

 in species which were exhibited by Col. Sykes before the Zoological Society, as 

 noticed in P. Z. S. 1835, 62, were examples of a Rhynchea styled Capensis, Stephens. 



In the class of Reptiles, a specimen of the Python Tigris, fifteen feet in length, has 

 been purchased alive and been killed; its skin has been mounted, a number of pre- 

 parations made of its viscera, and the skeleton is now in process of being cleaned. A 

 considerable number of other skeletons, chiefly of birds, have also been laid by to be 

 set up as opportunity will permit of it. 



Mr. Frith's donation comprised, in addition to the birds which have been mentioned, 

 a few specimens of insects, together with some pupa-envelopes constructed of bits 

 of plant-stems, though by what species I am unacquainted. 



