1846.] or Little Known Species of Birds. 283 



the only South of India female that I have to compare them with. Small 

 as this difference may seem, it is very perceptible in the general size 

 of the birds ; and ornithologists will form their own opinion as to its value. 

 In the Hemilophus Hodgsoni, Jerdon, the size of this species of Peninsular 

 India, exceeds that of the nearly allied H. javensis, Horsfield, v. leuco- 

 gaster, (Reinw.), of Tenasserim and Malacca, I might mention several 

 more instances of the kind, but will merely observe that further obser- 

 vation has confirmed the propriety of separating Caprimulgus albonotatus, 

 C. macrourus, and C. mahrattensis, (which last occurs in Ceylon,) these 

 species scarcely differing but in size ; also C. monticolus and C. affinis, 

 but C. arenarius of Burnes' drawings seems merely to be the nestling 

 plumage of C. monticolus, to judge from a specimen of the latter 

 with which the Society has been recently favoured by Dr. Stewart. 

 To return to the Woodpeckers, Gecinus chlorigaster (ante p. 16,) is an 

 inhabitant of Ceylon ; and this species, though well distinguished in 

 the colouring of its occiput more particularly, is as closely allied to 

 G. chloropus, as mutually are many of the approximate races to which 

 I have been adverting. 



Simotes albivertex, nobis (ante p. 19,) is not from Borneo, but from 

 an islet off the coast of Waigou : and so likewise is the Carpophaga 

 with knobbed bill, referred to the ' Sumatra Pigeon' of Latham in XIV, 

 857 ; while the small C. cenea, supposed to be from the same region 

 (loc. cit.J, proves to be from the Neilgherries. What further informa- 

 tion I have obtained on the Columbidce may be reserved till their turn 

 arrives : but in reference to the remark in a note to XIV, 846, that per- 

 haps some of the Gourince may prove to have more than twelve caudal 

 rectrices, I may here mention that Goura (v. Lophyrus), and also the 

 great Phaps group of Australia (including Leucosarcia, if not also, as I 

 suspect, Ocyphaps and Petrophassa), possess fourteen — as in Treron, 

 Carpophaga* and Ptilinopus ; while Chalcophaps, and apparently Peris- 

 tera, have only twelve. Of three specimens of Calcenas nicobaricus in 

 the Society's Museum, all have the tail imperfect ; and it is curious that 



* The curious Australian Pigeon, Lopholaimus antarcticus (v . Col. dilopha, Tem.,) 

 which in XIV, 885, 1 suggested was probably a subgeneric form of Carpophaga, is allied 

 rather fas I now find from inspection of specimens) to that Carpophaga-likc group of 

 true Columbince, having twelve tail-feathers only, which is referred to Dendrotreron, 

 Hodgson, in p. 53 ante, but which will bear the prior name Alsocomus of Tickeil, as 

 Col. punicea must also be assigned to it. 



