1870.] A Contribution to Malayan Ornithology. 327 



skin below the eye have in certain lights a greenish metallic lustre, 

 front and middle portion of the head, neck, the upper part of the 

 back and of the scapulars, chin, throat, and breast are glossed 

 purplish, lower back, rump, vent and both tail coverts are glossed 

 greenish. The nude patch of the skin begins at the lower half of 

 the eye, is broadest here, and becomes narrower posteriorly, where 

 the flaps are semi-circularly prolonged ; in both they are narrowly 

 connected at the base. There can be, I believe, not the least 

 doubt that the two birds belong to one and the same species. 

 Both the specimens have the bill not larger than most E. inter* 

 media ; in fact I have seen Indian specimens of the latter which 

 had the bill longer. J e r d o n says that the height of the bill in 

 Javanensis is f | ", this appears to have been taken from a specimen 

 in the Asiat. Soc. Coll., and seems very unusual, if not abnormal. 

 The size of the wing of the Malacca specimen approaches that of 

 the Javanese one, but the tail is as short as in intermedia ; the 

 wing of the Wellesley specimen is equal to that of a large inter- 

 media, but the tail is quite as long as in the largest specimens from 

 Java on record. This clearly shews that the birds vary in some or 

 other point almost from every other locality. Jerdon (B. Ind. 

 II, p. 339) observes that intermedia certainly extends from India into 

 Burma as far south as Tenasserim, and specimens from the last 

 locality are perfectly equal in size to those from Assam. 



The reference to the size of birds from a particular province 

 must be always considered as that of the usual average to be ob- 

 served. Lord Walden (Mad. Journ. XIII, pt. II, p. 156) 

 considered the Malacca bird to be the same as the Javanese, but 

 distinct from the Indian intermedia. Lately (Ibis, III, 1867, 

 p. 331) the same author appears to be inclined to add a third species 

 to the number, called by T y 1 1 e r Andamanensis, and another, (or 

 the same form) was described as Graucula dubia by Schlegel 

 in Nederl. Tijdsche. voor de Dierkunde, 1863, p. 7. I cannot un- 

 fortunately just now refer to the description of this last bird, nor 

 have I any true Javanese specimens to compare, but I shall briefly 

 record the measurements and general characters of a number of 

 specimens in the Asiatic Society's Museum, together with those 

 above described from Malacca and the Wellesley Province. From 



