1845.] or little known Species of Birds. 559 



South American ; which satisfactorily disposes of all the Asiatic species 

 that had been assigned by authors to the very peculiar Australian 

 genus Pardalotus, warranting and confirming our suspicions in other 

 instances, wherein the French naturalists more particularly have 

 strangely inclined to disregard some of the most striking exemplifica- 

 tions of the geographical limitation of particular forms. 



Two well marked species of Prionochilus are now before me, which 

 may be described as follow : 



1. Pr. percussus, (Tem.) : Dicceum ignicapillum> Eyton. Length 

 about three inches and seven-eighths, of wing two inches to two and a 

 quarter, and tail an inch and a quarter ; bill to gape seven-sixteenths, 

 and tarse half an inch. Colour dull lavender-blue above, the lower 

 parts bright yellow, passing to whitish on the lower tail-coverts ; a large 

 igneous-red spot on the vertex, and another in the centre of the 

 breast ; and a white streak from the side of the lower mandible, divid- 

 ed from the yellow of the throat by another of the same colour as the 

 upper parts. Bill black above, more or less whitish beneath ; and legs 

 lead-coloured. Mr. Eyton describes the female to be ashy above, with 

 the under-parts yellow irregularly streaked with cinereous ; and a red 

 spot on the vertex. The young are olive-green above, paler below ; 

 and it is doubtful, from a specimen before me (which has advanced in 

 its moult), whether there is either coronal spot, or more than a trace 

 of one, or of yellow on the under-parts, in its first plumage. From 

 Malacca. 



2. Pr. thoracicus, (? Tem.) The appropriateness of the name leaves 

 little doubt of this species being properly identified ; and it is not un- 

 likely that Pardalotus maculatus, Tem., refers to the female or the young. 

 Length four inches and a quarter, of wing two and three-eighths, 

 and tail an inch and a quarter ; bill to gape half an.inch, and tarse 

 rather more. Head, neck, breast, and throat, black, with an igneous- 

 red spot on the vertex, and a very large patch of the same on the 

 middle of the breast ; wings and tail also black, some of the feathers 

 slightly margined with olive ; back greenish-yellow, brightening on the 

 rump, and becoming vivid yellow on the upper tail-coverts, and on 

 the shoulder of the wing ; axillaries, and fore-part of the under surface 

 of the wing, white ; and the remainder of the lower parts yellow, ting- 

 ed with olive on the flanks. A presumed female has the entire upper 

 parts olive-green, with an igneous coronal spot, less red than in the 



4g 



