1850.] Conspectus of Indian Ornithology* 235 



Genus Tanygnathus, Wagler. 



11. T. malaccensis (Swainson's Zool. III., 1st series, pi. 154, the 

 male ? or adult of either sex ?) . 



Syn. Psittacus malaccensis, Latham (nee Gmelin). 

 Ps. incertus, Shaw. 

 Tana, Malacca. 

 Has. Malayan peninsula ; Sumatra. 



Remark. This species is essentially a small Palceornis with a short 

 and sub-even tail, and is somewhat allied in its colouring to P. colum- 

 boides and P. Calthrapce, which last (as we have seen) has a shorter 

 tail than the rest of its genus. T. macrorhynchos, upon which the 

 present genus was founded, is also closely related to Palceornis, but 

 upon a larger scale ; and the two bear the same mutual relationship as 

 subsists between P. Alexandri and P. cyanocephalus. Intermediate, we 

 have T. sumatranus, (Raffles), and we believe Ps. melanopterus, Gm., 

 and others, with the Prioniturus setarius, (Tern.), remarkable for the 

 shape of its tail, which however may still be considered intermediate to 

 those of Tanygnathus and Palceornis. In T. sumatranus (both sexes 

 of which we have possessed together and studied alive), the male has 

 a coral-red bill and the female a white bill ; and the same would appear 

 to obtain with T. malaccensis (if the difference of plumage in different 

 specimens be characteristic of sex and not merely of age) : and in the 

 great T. macrorhynchos, the nearly affined but smaller and less power- 

 fully billed T. sumatranus, and the small T. malaccensis, are alike 

 perceived a peculiar yellow margining of the wing-coverts, which occurs 

 in no species of Palceornis. Nearly affined again, we have the minute 

 African and Madagascar species forming the genus Agapornis, to which 

 T. malaccensis has by some been referred. 



It remains to ascertain whether both T. macrorhynchos and T. 

 sumatranus do not also inhabit the more elevated districts of the 

 interior of the Malayan peninsula. In a collection which Capt. 

 Charleton made at Malacca, there was a fine specimen of the former, 

 but we are not aware that it was obtained wild in that vicinity, and 

 rather doubt that either of these species occurs wild except in Borneo 

 and to the eastward. 



very little known, and is said to inhabit the island of Bourbon, is the only other 

 Palaornis not included in the above list ; the two Australian species being properly 

 separated to form the genus Polytelis. 



