288 Notices and Descriptions of various New [No. 172. 



on the breast and flanks : cap and ear-coverts black, but no black chin- 

 spot : the tail dusky or blackish, laterally edged with green towards its 

 base ; its four outer feathers having a largish white spot at tip, and the 

 two central pairs being successively more narrowly tipped with the same. 

 Bill and feet black. From Ceylon. If new, R. aberrans, nobis ; but I 

 repeat my suspicion of its being the female of R. gularis. 



Genus Calamoherpe, Boie. In my notice of the Indian species of 

 this genus, XIV, 594, I cited C. arundinacea, (Lin.), with a mark of 

 doubt, in referring to it the Agrobates brunnescens of Jerdon. By the 

 kindness of H. E. Strickland, Esq., the Society has now been favoured 

 with a specimen of the European bird, which proves, though very closely 

 allied, to be certainly a distinct species from its Indian representative. 

 It is rather larger, with a longer wing, the latter measuring above three 

 inches and three-quarters ; and a good distinction is afforded by the 

 European bird having its first primary somewhat longer, if anything, 

 than the next ; whereas the Indian species, which will now rank as 

 C. brunnescens, (Jerdon,*) has the first primary constantly three-six- 

 teenths of an inch shorter than the next, the third being, if anything, 

 longer than the second : the general colouring of the European species 

 is also rather more intense, and especially the russet hue of the flanks 

 abdomen, and lower tail- coverts, is considerably more developed. 



Another result for which we are indebted to the fine British collec- 

 tions just received from Mr. Strickland, — Mr. Kirtland, of the Ashmolean 

 Museum, Oxford, — Mr. Bartlett, of London, — and Mr. W. Davison, of 

 the Alnwick Museum, — is that the British Nuthatch is a different species 

 from that bearing the same name of Sitta europcea in Norway, which 

 latter Scandinavian bird is doubtless the true S. europcea of Linnaeus. 

 The Norwegian Nuthatch has the whole under- parts white, with the ex- 

 ception of the deep russet hue of the flanks and variegating the lower 

 tail-coverts, which is the same in both species. f In other respects they 

 resemble ; but the difference is as marked as between various acknow- 

 ledged species of Budytes, or the Motacilla alba and M. Yarrellii, fyc. ; 



* Provided, however, that it also proves distinct from C. olivetum (? or olivarum ?), 

 Strickland, another allied species which that gentleman procured in Greece, and which 

 is figured in Gould's ' Birds of Europe ;' but no description of Mr. Strickland's bird is 

 here accessible. 



t Some specimens have an exceedingly faint tinge of fulvous on the abdomen only. 



