means beautiful bluish-purple. As we have specimens of two 
admission of the truthful Edwards himself, “ That he had made 
his figure (and description?) after two different birds of this 
species.” The one bird of our Museum accurately exhibits the 
colouring of Edwards’s plate ; as now Linnaeus refers to this plate 
as that of his Cuculus persa* he in fact gives an accurate descrip- 
tion of this plate, without speaking of the red tips of the crest, any 
more than Brisson does ;t so Gmelin appears, in his 13th edition 
of the Systcma Nature, to have been the first who, disregarding 
the colouring of Edwards’s plate, has merely adopted the description 
in his text, as that of Linnaeus’s Cuculas persa, for ho speaks of 
“ crista mobilis apice rubens, humeri, tectrices caudae superiors 
alar unique nmjores ex caerulcscente purpurese.” That species ol 
Turacus which Edwards in his description indicates by the red tips 
of the crest, and by the fine purple blue colouring of the entire back, 
wings, and tail, has long existed in our Museum, without any cer- 
tain indication of its habitat, and it had erroneously borne the title 
of Turacus persa , Linmcus. The white stripe round the eyes, above 
the black line, between the corner of the mouth and the orbit, is 
wanting, yet it agrees accurately with Edwards s description. Had 
we not recently obtained the true Turacus persa of Linmcus, that 
is to say, the bird which Edwards figured, through the kindness of 
Professor Peter Mcrian, the founder of the Basle Museum, I should 
not have been in a position to discover the errors in descriptions 
and synonyms of the birds denominated Turacus persa , the specific 
character of which I now flatter myself I have established in a sa- 
tisfactory manner. I propose to indicate one of those birds, that 
namely with the red tips along the quadrant shaped crest, as a 
new species, under the name Turacus meriani, and for the clearer 
understanding of all the known species of the whole genus, I give 
a synopsis of the distinguishing characters of each. 
* In the 10th and 12th edition, compiled by himself, Stockholm, 17^8 and 1700. 
t Cuculus cauda squill i, capitc crista erecta, anticc viridis, postice subviolaceus, 
rcuiigibus primoribus rubris, linea alba supra et infra palpcbras sanguinca. 
species -of Turacus in our 
colouring the difference whi 
description has arisen, so 
our Museum, from whose combination of 
which exists between Edwards’s figure and 
so that discrepancy explains itself by the 
71 
