228 ZOOLOGISCHE MEDEDEELINGEN — DEEL I. 



XIV. - ON A NEW BIRD OF PARADISE FROM CENTRAL NEW 

 GUINEA, FALCINELLUS MEYERI ALBICANS. 

 BY Dr. E. D. VAN OORT. 



Among the collection of birdskins brought home by the third expe- 

 dition to Mount Wilhelmina in the Snow Mountains of New Guinea 

 there are some specimens, males and females, of a bird of paradise, much 

 resembling Falcinellus meyeri (Finsch) from South-east New Guinea, but 

 differing in some points. They likely are representatives of a western 

 form of the above-named species, inhabiting the high mountains of the 

 central part of Netherlands' New Guinea. I name this form : 

 Falcinellus meyeri albicans nov. subsp. 



The adult male is similar to that of meyeri, the long feathers of the 

 flanks however are white and not pale yellowish brown; the breast is 

 more pure olive, with less brown tinge. The female much resembles 

 that of meyeri, but the colour of the back, upper tailco verts and tail- 

 feathers is olive-brown, without rufous tinge. 



Types, (ƒ 9, Treubbivak (236G m.) on the Treub Mountains, January 

 30, 1913 and March 8, 1913. G. Versteeg leg., N os 497 and 630. 



The expedition has collected near Bijenkorf bivak, on the southern 

 slope of the Hellwig Mountains at an elevation of Hh 1750 m., a fine 

 series of the black form of Falcinellus striatus (Boddaert), described by 

 Mr. Rothschild from Mount Goliath (5000 feet) under the name of Fal- 

 cinellus striatus atratus (Ibis, 1912, p. 110). Mr. Rothschild is right in 

 treating this bird as a subspecies of striatus, but this is not the case 

 with meyeri, as he has done in a paper in the Ibis of 1911, p. 350. 

 The females of striatus and atratus are easily distinguished from the 

 females of meyeri and albicans by the coloration of the quills, the rufous 

 colour of the outer webs of the primaries and of the inner webs of the 

 secondaries is wanting in the latter ones; also -the undersurface is differ- 

 ent, in striatus and atratus barred black and white, in meyeri and albi- 

 cans black and yellowish brown. The bill is, also in the males, of differ- 

 ent shape, in meyeri and albicans longer and thinner, in striatus and 

 atratus shorter and thicker. I think it more reasonable to treat the four 

 forms as two species and two subspecies: 



Falcinellus striatus (Boddaert), N. W. New Guinea. 



Falcinellus striatus atratus Rothschild, Central New Guinea. 



Falcinellus meyeri (Finsch), S. E. New Guinea. 



Falcinellus meyeri albicans Van Oort, Central New Guinea. 

 Leiden Museum, November 1915. 



