42 Notices and Descriptions of various New [No. 169. 



In the 'Madras Journal,' No. XXXI, 136, Mr. Jerdon considers his 

 A. deva (A. malabarica apud nos,) to be an aberrant Certhilauda, nearly 

 allied to C. Boysii : but, if so, he must have sent the Society another 

 species as his A. deva ; for the specimen referred to, is a true Alauda, 

 closely allied to A. gulgula, but with a pointed crest, and quite agreeing 

 with Scopoli's description upon which is founded A. malabarica, 

 Gmelin ; whereas Mirafra affinis, Jerdon, which Mr. Strickland consi- 

 dered to be the malabarica, has too short a wing for that bird, and also 

 does not accord in other particulars. 



Genus Accentor, Bechstein. This remarkable genus seems to come 

 in no where better than on the extreme verge of the Fringillidce, which 

 I believe to be its natural location.* Mr. Hodgson has recently described 

 (in P. Z. S. 1845, p. 34), in addition to Ace. nipalensis and Ace. 

 strophiatus, J. A. S. XII, 958-9, an Ace. cacharensis and an Ace. im- 

 maculatus. Specimens, however, with which that gentleman favoured the 

 Society, having those names attached, I consider to be decidedly of 

 one and the same species in different states of plumage ; and I have 

 described each of these phases in my notice of Ace. nipalensis. Refer- 

 ring now to Mr. Hodgson's specimens which were so labelled, I 

 still consider his Ace. immaculatus to be the adult in worn plumage, 

 which I mentioned in my description of this bird to have been forwarded 

 as distinct ; but I cannot equally well reconcile the description of Ace. 

 cacharensis with the only young specimen retained for the Museum, 

 though I still greatly doubt its distinctness. I know four well marked 

 Himalayan species of Accentor, all of which have been described by me 

 in the Society's Journal, viz. Ace. nipalensis, Ace. variegatus, Ace. 

 strophiatus, and Ace. mollis, (vide XIV, 581). 



The Fringillidce pass to the softer-billed birds through the great 

 American series of the Tanagrince ; and from them I believe there is a 

 pretty complete gradation to the Certebinte, or South American Honey- 

 suckers. The latter are quite distinct from any of the nectar-feeding 

 genera of the Old World, which may nevertheless follow, and we com- 

 mence the series of them with the Nectariniadce, (passing over the true 

 Promeropidce, in which Irrisor does not rank). 



Genus Arachnothera, Temminck, treated of in XII, 981, and fur- 



* When writing the above, I had not remarked Mr. Hodgson's expressed opinion 

 to the same efl'ect. P. Z. S. 1845, p. 34. 



