3. 



/ 

 184g.] Mr. Blyth's Report for December Meeting, 1842. 987 



/ 

 description and specific character, differs in various particulars from 



the present species, and mentions that there are specimens of the 



Jatter from Sumatra in the Hon'ble Company's museum. It is also 



found in suitable districts throughout India (though not, that I am 



aware of, in Bengal), is frequent in the Tenasserim provinces, and the 



Society possess specimens from Assam and Arracan. It does not appear 



to be subject to any variation of plumage, either sexual or according 



to age ; but there are some differences in the colouring of the bill and 



casque of the sexes, as noticed by Messrs. Hodgson and Elliot, and 



also of the irides, which in the adult males are intense crimson, and 



in the females and young hoary. 



Not having Levaillant's plates to refer to, I have no means of 

 forming an opinion respecting his Calao a casque concave, further 

 than can be derived from the conflicting descriptions of Shaw and 

 others, though founded on those plates ; but as his Rhinoceros Horn, 

 bill is erroneously represented to have the tail black with a white tip, 

 instead of white with a black cross-band as in the Homrai, I conclude 

 that his plates of the present species are equally untrustworthy, 

 and feel justified in following Gould and others in retaining the name 

 cavatus for Mr. Hodgson's Homrai, which, together with B. rhinoceros 

 as above indicated, is the only species of its respective subtype that 

 appears to have been verified up to the present time. 



The following details shew the confusion that has arisen from 

 Levaillant's figures, which were doubtless made up from imperfect 

 and perhaps faultily restored specimens. Stephens, in his continuation 

 of Shaw's Zoology (XIV, pt. I, 80), unites the B. bicornis and B. 

 cavatus of Shaw, assigning Sumatra as the habitat, wherein I pre- 

 sume that he follows Temminck. In Griffith's edition of the Regne 

 Animal (VII, 417), and also in the second (French) edition of that 

 work by its illustrious author (I, 446), the B. bicornis, Levaillant, 

 pi. VII, is stated to be the adult female, of which B. cavatus, id. IV, is 

 the middle-aged male ; to which is added that plates III and V repre- 

 sent u altered individuals." The uselessly brief description annexed 

 in Griffith's work is as follows : — • " Black with white patch on second 

 quills ; protuberance forming a double horn : Philippine Islands." 

 And there is a figure of the bill and casque, assigned to bicornis, in 

 Griffith's work, Vol. VII, plate to p. 435, which might pass for 



