Genus — A LISTERUS. 
Alisterus Mathews, Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., 
p. 13, 1911 . . . . . . . . . . Type A. scapularis. 
Large Polytelitine birds with long hooked bills, long wings, long wedge-shaped 
tails and small legs and feet and peculiar coloration. The distinct coloration, as 
hereafter explained, separate this genus from the preceding. 
The bill is long and sharply hooked, the tip pointed : there is a distinct 
gap after the tip, the edges thence slight sinuate : the under mandible is 
short and broad with a round face : the tip is truncate and the lateral edges 
nearly straight. The cere is naked, the nostrils circular, placed high up on 
either side of the culmen ridge which is broadly rounded. The lores are 
feathered. The wing has the same formula as the preceding genus. The 
tail is long and strongly wedge-shaped, almost as long as the wing : the 
feathers are broad, the middle two scarcely exceeding the succeeding pair, 
but thence rapidly decreasing. 
The feet are small and normally formed. 
When Gould introduced the preceaing genus name he attached to it the 
present species. In 1865, when Gould separated the two forms, he simply 
wrote : “ The birds for which I propose the above generic appellation are, 
in my opinion, sufficiently different in form and colouring to warrant their 
being separated from Aprosmietus, and formed into a new genus.” He gave 
no further details, and as I have shown in connection with the preceding genus 
he named the wrong genus. 
As a matter of fact, the distinct coloration is the main feature, the 
structural characters being verv similar. However, I shall show that in the 
present case color is of higher value than structure ana consequently Gould’s 
action was right. 
In the Catalogue of Birds, Vol. XX., p. 388, 1891, Salvadori, gave the 
following diagnoses for the groups I will now deal with : 
“f 8 . Tail-feathers very broad. 
c ? . Tail-feathers almost equally long. Ptistes. 
d 7 . Tail much graduated. 
a 8 , Bill weaker with the upper mandible notched, and more or less 
red, especially at the base. A'prosmictus. 
b 8 . Bill stronger, deeper than long, of a black horn 
colour, with the upper mandible not notched. Pyrrhulopsis .” 
287 
* 
