385 
Letters, Announcements, ^c. 
Mr. Sharpe makes no endeavour to show what Brisson^s 
bird may have been. About the genus there is no doubt, and 
yet it is the only species of the genus described by Brisson. 
There were only two species possible for him to have described. 
One, A. fuscus, is out of the question; the other is this Phi¬ 
lippine species, with its wide range over the whole Malayan 
archipelago, Celebes, the Moluccas, parts of New Guinea with 
several of its islands, and parts of Australia. If a “ black and 
white species like A. melaleucus existed in the Philippines, as 
Drs. Hartlaub and Finsch at one time thought (P. Z, S. 1868, 
pp. 116,117), it could not be Brisson^s bird; for he described 
his species as being blackish. But Mr. Sharpe also admits 
that the archipelago is inhabited by only one species. 
It is not my object to revise critically this monograph of 
the Artami, But when Mr. Sharpe says, ^^what the bird 
from the Pelew Islands is, cannot be determined without a 
specimen,^’ and when we find this bird altogether omitted from 
his list of species composing the genus, it seems desirable to 
note that it has been described by Dr. Finsch (Journ. Mus. 
Geoffr. Hft. xiii. p. 41) as a distinct species, under the title of 
A. pelewensis, and that, quite lately. Dr. Finsch (P. Z. S. 1877, 
p. 739) has referred his readers to that account for the dif¬ 
ferences that distinguish it from A. melaleucus. It may 
be added to Mr. Sharpe’s notes {t. c.) that the Celebesian 
form, of A. leucorhynchus has been entitled A. celebensis by 
the late Dr. Briiggemann. A species from the Inseln des 
stillen Oceans ” has been described by the same author as 
new, under the title of A. brevipes, which, on Dr. Briigge- 
mann’s authority, I may state, is nothing but A. fuscus. It 
may be added that the same author, in the belief that A. 
insignis was the true A, monachus, has given the latter species 
the title of A, spectabilis (Ann. N. H. ser. 5, i. p. 349). 
Yours obediently, 
Tweeddale. 
Tester, 24tli May, 1878. 
Captain Blakiston, writing from Hakodate, Japan, Dec. 
30th, 1877, calls our attention to the following errors in Mr. 
SER. IV.-VOL. II. 2d 
