79 
Dicruridse and their Arrangement, 
amination of Le Vaillant^s type specimen, labelled Le Dr on- 
gup j at Leyden, enabled me some years ago to assert its iden¬ 
tity (Ibis, 1867, p. 468). This is a second instance in this 
family where Mr. Sharpe appears to have rather hastily re¬ 
jected the nomenclature adopted by previous writers. 
D. lophorhinus is an aberrant form of the genus Disse- 
murus. It is, if the term may be used, a transition species. 
If the shafts of the outer pair of rectrices were denuded for 
part of their length, and only webbed at their extremity, it 
would be a typical Dissemurus. Unless the structure of the 
outer pair of rectrices be taken into account, the bird is diffi¬ 
cult to distinguish from D. malabaricus, ex Ceylon and Ma¬ 
labar. In the key to the species of Dissemuroides, D. lopho¬ 
rhinus (sive edoliiformis) is stated to be smaller than D. anda- 
manensis, whereas it is larger. 
The structure of D. andamanensis andZ). lophorhinus 
so dissimilar, I cannot concur in associating them together, 
much less in forming for their reception a separate genus; 
and it seems preferable, and more consistent with their 
peculiarities of .structure, to place the first species under 
Buchanga, the last under Dissemurus, and to reject the generic 
title Dissemuroides altogether. 
Dicranostreptus megarhynchus. —This single species, the 
type of Reichenbacffis genus, does not possess any one cha¬ 
racter sufficient to remove it from the genus Dissemurus. Mr. 
Sharpe admits Dicranostreptus as a good genus on the strength 
of the extravagant length of the outer tail-feathers. In both 
Bhringa and Dissemurus the outer tail-feathers are extrava¬ 
gantly long, in the first being more than three times the 
length of the body; but, taken alone, the great length of an 
outer rectrix can hardly be considered a sufficient generic 
character. The outer rectrix in D. megarhynchus only differs 
from that in Dissemurus in having the lengthened shaft 
webbed throughout its entire length, this being normal in the 
species, whereas, although sometimes occurring, it is abnormal 
in the other species of the genus Dissemurus, except in D. 
lophorhinus. In the latter species the outer rectrix is generally 
completely webbed also, but is not nearly so much prolonged. 
