NEW SPECIES OF POMATORHINUS. 



179 



VIIL— NEW SPECIES OF POMATORHINUS, AND ITS ALLIES, 



WITH REMARKS ON THE GENUS. 



Whoever will attempt to classify half a dozen of the familiar Sub-Hi- 

 malayan species, known to the people themselves by the generic titles 

 Gdnrd and Bhidcurd, will be, I think, forcibly struck with the profound 

 truth of the adage that, " Practise often creeps where Philosophy cannot 

 soar." 



The people generalize and unite upon the strong ground of similar 

 habits and manners, joined to a certain family likeness in external aspect ; 

 the Philosophers specialize and divide upon the feebler basis of distinctive 

 formation in the details of some one or tiuo external organs. I admit the 

 validity of the distinctions so far as they go, but I think they are, in these 

 ca§es, more than countervailed by prevalent uniformity of general structure, 

 and by similarUy of manners; in other words, that the Gdnrds and Bhiacurds 

 constitute two, and but two distinct though closely allied* genera, each 

 exhibiting several subordinate but well defined modifications of form, or 

 sub-genera. I have already remarked upon the general resemblance and 

 particular differences of the Gdnrds or Cinclosomcs. Upon those of the 

 Bhidcurds or Pomatorhini, I shall now make a few observations. 



The essential characters of Pomatorhinus appear to me to be as follows : 



A bill considerably elongated and arched throughout, perfectly entire, 

 slender, strong, obtuse, cylindrico-compressed, with broad convex ridges and 

 plane vertical sides ; its tomiae somewhat scarpt and locked towards the centre 

 of the bill, simply opposed towards the solid tips of both mandibles, 



Short basal nares free from plumes, and closed above by a hard, arched, 

 and porrect scale. Stout, ambulatory, sub-corvine legs and feet ; and feeble 



* Of thi^ alliance it is a striking proof that one of my species (of Timalia) was marked by 

 an eminent authority in England, as being " new and closely related to Cinclosoma," — See 

 llomarks in the Sequel. 



