LIST OF A COLLECTION OF BIRDS FROM 
remiges fuscous, margined externally with blue ; primaries white at 
the base on both, secondaries on the inner, webs ; tail bluish ; chin 
white ; cheeks, hind neck, breast and belly yellowish-white, with a 
black line down the centre of each feather ; beak fuscous, base of 
lower mandible red ; feet brown. 
Total length, 7.3 ; beak to front, i. 3 , to gape, i .6 ; wing, 3.5; 
rectrices, 2.2; tarsus, 5 . 
Almost identical in colouring with H. chelicuti , Stanley (Alcedo 
striolata , Licht. ; Dacelo pygmezus, Rupp.), from Abyssinia and 
Senegal, but much larger in size. A specimen of the present bird 
in the British Museum is erroneously labelled “A. striolata ,” which 
name, as defined by Lichtenstein, refers to the smaller species. 
67. Coracias caudata, Linn. 
68. Melittophagus hirundineus (Licht.) ; (Merops furcatus, Stan- 
ley ; M. taw a, Cut. ; M. hirundinaceus , Swains. ; M. chrysolcemus , 
Jard., 111. Orn. ser. i. pi. 99). 
69. Irrisor erythrorhyncus (Lath.) ? 
The Damara specimen has the beak 2 . 2 long to the gape, con- 
siderably curved, and red, as in specimens from the Cape. But 
the white band on the primaries is broad, as in I. senegalensis , the 
shaft being nearly white, and extends over both webs of the fourth 
to the tenth primary ; while in the Cape bird the band is narrow, 
commencing on the outer web with the fifth primary, and is dis- 
tinctly divided by the black shaft. Another distinction is also 
pointed out at p. 58 supra, in the greater extent of white at the 
tips of the primary covers (not the bastard wing , as inadvertently 
stated) in the Senegal than in the Cape species. In this respect 
also the present specimen agrees with the West African, and not 
with the South African species. The Damara bird thus approaches 
in plumage the red-beaked specimens of I. senegalensis from Kor- 
dofan, described by me in Proc. Zool. Soc. part xviii. p. 216, but in 
these the beak is short and nearly straight, as in the black-beaked 
specimens from Senegal. Whether these variations indicate a plu- 
rality of ill-defined species, or a single but very variable one, must 
be decided by future inquiry. Sir W. Jardine (p. 58 supra) con- 
siders the colour of the beak to depend on age or season, but I am 
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