416 
Mr. P. L. Sclater on Dr. A. B. Meyer’s 
any before attained, either by myself or others. They are the 
result of following out a simple principle of classification 
whose partial application has been long accepted; and they 
possess, I think, the merit of introducing some intelligible 
order into the most extensive of all the natural groups of 
birds, and the one whose complex and divergent affinities 
have always been a source of the greatest perplexity to syste- 
matists. I now submit my proposed arrangement to the kind 
consideration of ornithologists as one well suited for practical 
use until a more generally acceptable one is arrived at. In 
passing judgment on it, I beg them to bear in mind that I do 
not set up the “ first primary 99 as an infallible guide to be 
blindly followed, but only as a clue by means of which we 
may sometimes extricate ourselves from the labyrinth of 
doubtful Passerine affinities in which we so often lose our 
way. 
XLI.— Dr. A. B. Meyer’s Ornithological Discoveries in New 
Guinea. By P. L. Sclater. 
Beginning in February last. Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer has 
made a series of communications to the Imperial Academy of 
Sciences of Vienna up* *on the ornithological results of his 
recent expedition to New Guinea. Of these, altogether six in 
number, we have lately received the full text, abstracts of 
them having previously come to hand. In the first of these* 
Dr. Meyer describes seven new species:—(1) JEgotheles dubius, 
from the Arfak mountains (perhaps =JE. albertisi , Scl.) ; 
(2) Todopsis mysorensis , from Mysore ; (3) Chrysococcyx 
splendidus, from the Arfak mountains; (4) Ailurcedus ar- 
fakianusf , from Atam; (5) Orthonyx nova-guinece, from the 
Arfak mountains; (6) Talegallus jobiensis, from Jobi; and 
(7) Megapodius geelvinkianus , from Mysore. Dr. Meyer also 
* “Ueber neue und ungeniigend bekannte Vogel von Neu-Guinea und 
den Inseln der Geelvinksbai (erste Mittbeilung) yon Dr. Adolf Bernhard 
Meyer,” Sitz. d. k. Akad. der Wiss. vol. xlix. 1. Abth. (Feb. 1874). 
t I examined a skin of AZlurcedus, from Atam, in Sign. D’Albertis’s col¬ 
lection, but could not distinguish it from JBt melanotis. 
