1845.] or little known Species of Birds. 575 



A specimen from the Nicobars is perhaps the young, having the 

 wing but three inches and a half long, and the secondaries, terti- 

 aries, and edges of the primaries, rufous-brown ; tail slightly tinged 

 with the same : coronal feathers tinged with dusky-ash, and less pointed ; 

 the throat and fore-neck white, tinged with yellow ; and the rest of the 

 under-parts mixed yellow and white, with olive on the sides of the 

 breast : bill also shorter, tinged with yellow, and approaching in form 

 to that of the next group, as indeed does the whole figure of the bird ; 

 so much so, that if the above characters prove to be permanent, I 

 would propose for it the name Ixocincla virescens. 



A form requiring, I think, distinction from Hypsipetes, may be 

 designated 



Ixocincla, nobis. It differs from Hypsipetes, in its more bulky 

 form, stouter and more meruline bill, and in the greater size of the legs 

 and toes ; but in other respects is nearly allied. 



^ I. olivacea, (Jardine and Selby); the female erroneously figured 

 as Hypsipetes ganeesa, in the ///. Orn., 1st series, pi. CLXVIII, and 

 (as I am informed) subsequently named Hyps, olivacea in the second 

 series of the same work, where a figure of the true H. ganeesa is 

 given. This bird has a much more meruline aspect than in true Hyp- 

 sipetes, and it is known as the Merle to the colonists of the Isle of 

 France. Length eleven inches and a half, of wing five and three- 

 eighths, and tail four and five-eighths ; bill to gape an inch and three- 

 eighths, and tarse an inch. Male having the upper-parts dusky, the 

 feathers margined with dark dingy greenish ; wings and tail uniform 

 dusky-brown, the tertiaries slightly margined with ashy : cap blackish, 

 the feathers pointed as in true Hypsipetes ; lores deeper black, and 

 a slight grey supercilium from the nostrils to the occiput, lighter- 

 coloured from the nostrils to the eye : under-parts uniform dusky ash- 

 colour, purer on the throat, and paling on the belly and under tail- 

 coverts, which last have a faint tinge of ferruginous : bill bright orange- 

 yellow; and the legs appear to have been yellowish-brown. Female paler, 

 with the greenish margins to the feathers much more developed, and 

 the ash-colour confined to the throat, ear-coverts, and front of the neck. 

 Turdus borbornicus, Lath., is perhaps a second species of this type. 



The generic name Brachypus, it seems, must now be abandoned, at 

 least in Ornithology, and it appears never to have been employed in 

 a very definite signification. At all events, very different forms of 



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