136 
Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
The Pelew bird is also referred by Dr. Finsch to the Ocypterus 
leucorhynchvs, Cuv., of Hahn (Yog. ans As., Afr. &c. pt. xix. 
t. 2); and the plate is characterized as excellent. Hahn's 
figure represents all the dark plumage jet-black; but he de¬ 
scribes the head, neck, wings, and tail as being slate-grey, 
and the back only as sooty black. Although styled a “ftgura 
optima ” by Dr. Finsch, the upper tail-coverts in Hahn's 
plate are coloured black instead of white. Hahn gives the 
East Indies, especially Java, as the range of the species he 
describes and figures. 
Now, putting aside the fact that there is no known species 
of Artamus whose dark shade of colouring is nearly so in¬ 
tensely black as that depicted by D'Aubenton, by Sonnerat, 
and by Hahn, not even the Pelew species, there is the still 
more convincing fact that there is no record of any author 
having ever seen authenticated Philippine examples of two 
species of Artamus. Dr. Finsch (in epist.), kindly replying 
to my queries on this point, informs me that he has never 
seen authenticated Philippine examples of more than one 
species; and they belonged to the Sunda-Islands form, A. 
leucogaster, Yalenc. If, then, examples of a second Philip¬ 
pine species are unknown, and if, as is admitted by Dr. 
Finsch, the species which is known to inhabit the Philip¬ 
pines, and especially Luzon, is identical with that of the 
Sunda Islands, this last must take the Linnsean title of 
the Philippine bird. In this view the synonymy of the species 
as set forth by me in my memoir on the birds of Celebes (Tr. 
Z. S. viii. p. 67) will, I think, be found correct. My excuse 
for writing to you now so fully on the subject is not only be¬ 
cause so distinguished an ornithologist as Dr. Finsch has dif¬ 
fered from this interpretation of the facts, but because another 
most accurate naturalist, Count Salvadori, after accepting 
my views in his meritorious work on the birds of Borneo, has 
since adopted, in his notes on some Celebean birds (Ann. Mus. 
Civ. St. Nat. Genova, vii. p. jf6), those of Dr. Finsch. If the 
Pelew species of Artamus specifically differs from A. mela- 
leucus (Forst.), it would appear to require a distinctive title. 
I remain, yours, &c., 
Chislehurst, December 1875. Walden. 
