423 
Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
It is a pity that so little care is taken in supplying the 
mounted specimens of birds in various museums with eyes of 
the correct colour. As an instance of this I may cite the speci¬ 
mens of Scotopelia peli in the British,Museum, which are fur¬ 
nished with eyes like those of an Eagle-Owl, instead of with eyes 
as dark as those of a Stride, That this is the case in the living 
bird may be seen in the example figured in f The Ibis ' for 1859 
( P i. xv.), which, after having lived several years in my possession, 
is now in the collection of the Zoological Society. 
I am, &c., 
J. H. Gurney. 
10th July, 1866. 
SrR,— On the 6th instant I shot at Teesmouth a Swallow of 
the race to which the names Hirundo riocouri , H. cahirica, H. 
savignii, and H. boissoneauti seem to have been variously applied. 
It was a male, and agrees in all respects with specimens in Mr. 
Tristram's collection, brought from Palestine and marked “ Hi¬ 
rundo cahirica ,'' but is not so deeply coloured as the example 
from Egypt in that gentleman's possession, which was figured 
by Dr. Bree (Birds of Europe, iii. p. 170). 
I am, &c., 
J. H. Gurney, Jun. 
Chislehurst, August 1866. 
Sir, —Since the publication of my remarks “ On the Musci- 
capa melanictera of Gmelin " (anted, pp. 316-323), I have been 
favoured by Mr. Gould with a view of what he assures me is the 
type-specimen of his Brachypus gularis. It is undoubtedly an 
example of the species described under the name of B. rubineus 
by Dr. Jerdon; and as Mr. Gould's appellation possesses a 
priority of several years, Dr. Jerdon's designation must be super¬ 
seded by it. B. gularis, Gould, must also cease to be regarded 
as a synonym of AEgithina atricapilla, Vieillot ( Muscicapa mela¬ 
nictera, Gmelin); and I regret that, being misled by the short 
diagnosis of B. gularis given by Mr. Gould (P.Z.S. 1835, p. 186), 
accidentally omitting as it does one of the most essential charac¬ 
teristics of the bird, I fell into the error of so regarding it—an 
2 f 2 
