48 On a New Genus of Insessorial Birds. 



exhibits there, one deep notch on either side. The furcula 

 is long and feeble, and is joined to the low keel of the sternum 

 merely by cartilage. The intestines are six and a half inches 

 long with grain-like caeca placed about one inch from the anal 

 end. The stomach is muscular and red : its outer coat of 

 trivial unequal thickness : its inner, tough and striated : food, 

 hard scaly insects of the ground, with ants. Of the sexual 

 diversities of colour I am unaware. My specimen is, above, 

 olive-brown (or black on the outer vanes) streaked down the 

 shafts with buff, and below, fulvous, more or less emarginated 

 laterally with the olive of the upper surface, thus resembling, 

 even in its colours, the birds I have suggested its affinity to. 

 The alars and caudals are dusky internally, and the lower tail- 

 coverts very ruddy, almost rusty-red. Bill and feet, dusky- 

 grey, or brownish horn colour : iris dark brown. Of the 

 manners I have already spoken ; and as they, as well as the 

 structure, are so much assimilated to the little tailless thrushes 

 (Tesia vel Micrurus) I cannot doubt that our proposed new 

 genus should be located near to them, whatever may be ad- 

 judged their place. 



Darjeeling : December, 1846. B. H. H. 



Topography and Medical History of the Settlement of Malacca, for 

 the year 1845. By Residency Assistant Surgeon J. A. Ratton. 



Malacca, ceded to the British Government by the Dutch in 

 exchange for Bencoolen in the year 1825, is the central British 

 settlement in the Straits. It is situated on the western coast of the 

 Malayan Peninsula, and with the opposite coast of Sumatra, assists in 

 part to form the Straits to which it gives its name. It is situated, 

 as it were, half-way between the Island settlements of Penang and 

 Singapore, being 260 miles below the former, which constitutes the 

 north-west extreme to the Straits, and 120 miles above Singapore, 

 which forms its eastern terminus, or south-east extreme. 



