140 
FI.RPLE-I1EADED OR SCALY GRAKI.E. 
Lamprotornis ptilonorhynchus , Swains. 
Above, glossy metallic green ; head, tail, and plumage beneath, 
simple blue % frontal feathers advancing and compressed 
forwards on the bill ; shoulder and tail- covers soak -like, 
and greenish blue. 
Le couigniop, Le Vaill ., Ois. d'Afrique , ii. PI. 90, p. 163. — 
Turdus niten8? A uctorum. 
There exists in the hot parts of Africa a small 
family of birds, having the size and shape of 
thrushes and the habits of starlings, but whose 
plumage, totally unlike any others, is of the richest 
metallic green and purple which it is possible to 
conceive. M. Le Vaillant has given us an account 
of those species inhabiting the interior of Southern 
Africa, and we can now add two others, apparently 
new, from the Western region. From the general 
similarity in the changeable plumage of these birds, 
and from our best systematic writers having over- 
looked their true distinctions, great confusion exists 
among the species in their catalogues. Some of 
these errors we hope to clear up, the determining 
those which will be now described. 
The species now under consideration is one of 
the most splendid of these Grakles. Immense flocks 
of them arrive at certain periods on the lower lands 
