1844. J for December Meeting, 1842. 365 



bright yellow. Female rather smaller, having the ash-colour of the 

 male replaced by brown, pale on rump, and the head and throat dingy 

 whitish, passing into ashy-brown on the occiput. A handsome species, 

 with delicate silky plumage.* 



St. cana, Nobis. I can only describe this species from an imper- 

 fectly moulted specimen received from Macao. Length about seven 

 inches, of wing three inches and seven-eighths, and tail two inches and 

 three-eighths ; bill to gape an inch, and tarse seven-eighths of an inch. 

 Colour of the new feathers of the crown and back plain brownish-ash, 

 and of those of the breast and flanks the same but much paler and de- 

 licately tinted, all being rounded as in the nestling plumage, not 

 slender and elongate as usual in this group ; throat and belly al- 

 bescent : the unshed nestling feathers are uniformly of a paler or 

 browner grey above, and lighter-coloured below : wings and tail darker, 

 the primaries and middle tail-feathers glossy nigrescent: some of the 

 larger coverts upon each wing towards the scapularies are white in the 

 specimen, which however I conceive to be partial albinism, and not to 

 be a constant character ; but the coverts of the primaries are also white 

 for the greater part of their outer web, which is more probably normal : 

 tertiaries brownish and pale-edged, and the outer tail-feathers whitish 

 towards their tips: bill yellowish, mixed with dusky ; and legs appear 

 to have been sullied yellow. This is obviously a distinct species from 

 any of the foregoing. 



The Pastor tricolor, Horsfield, Lin. Trans, xiii, 155, v. P. mela- 

 nopterus, Wagler, is probably another species of this group inhabiting 

 Java. 



According to Mr. G. R. Gray (List of the Genera of Birds, 2nd 

 edit.), the type of the genus Pastor is P. roseus, (Lin.) Tem., which is 

 very common in many parts of India, but visits the neighbourhood 

 of Calcutta only towards the end of the cool season, when flocks of 

 this species and of Sturnia pagodarum are not unfrequently observed 

 upon the arboreal cotton then in blossom. Nearly related to this, 

 according to M. Lesson, is a Peguan species, P. peguanus, Lesson, 



* In Mr. Strickland's catalogue of some Chinese birds exhibited in London (Ann. 

 and Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1843, p. 221), the above species is termed Acridotheres 

 sericeus, with the remark, that it " is quite distinct from A. dauricus, Pall., with 

 which it is united by Wagler." To which of the minor groups this A. dauricus 

 should be referred, it is not easy to divine from the description of it. 



