On the Species of the Genus Plotus. 
41 
VII.— On the Species of the Genus Plotus and their 
Distribution. By H. B. Tristram, D.D., F.B.S. 
(Plate III.) 
There are few groups in ornithology more distinct than the 
subfamily Plotinse—so sharply marked that not an aberrant 
Cormorant on the -one side, or Tropic-bird on the other, has 
ever been suspected of balancing itself on the boundary-fence. 
Yet even this self-contained group has not escaped the fate 
of all others, of being subdivided into baseless species. The 
genus Plotus is usually held to contain four species :— 
(1) P. anhinga , L., extending through the temperate and 
tropical regions of the whole New World. 
(2) P. levaillanti , Licht., hitherto supposed to be confined 
to Southern, Western, and Central Africa. 
(3) P. melanogaster , Gm., inhabiting the whole Indian 
region and Madagascar. 
(4) P. novae-hollandiae , Gould, from Australia. 
It is difficult, from the specimens in the British Museum, 
to distinguish this last bird from P. melanogaster. Gould, in 
his description, gives as the diagnosis of the species (P. Z. S. 
1847, p. 34)—“Very closely allied to the Plotus inhabiting 
Java, but distinguished from it by the shortness of the scapu- 
laries and by its larger size.” On examining the series in 
the Museum, I do not find any such constant differences. 
The largest Chinese specimen equals the smallest Australian 
in both respects. I am inclined to agree with Schlegel 
(Mus. des Pays-Bas) in specifically uniting the Australian 
with the Indian bird. 
During my journey through Northern Syria in 1881, it 
was my good fortune to discover a colony of Plotus breeding 
in the Bahr el Abiad, or Luke of Antioch. I brought this 
fact before the notice of the Zoological Society, and exhibited 
a male specimen in full breeding-plumage and the eggs ob¬ 
tained by me (P. Z. S. 1881, p. 826), identifying the bird 
with the African P. levaillanti , and not with the Indian 
species. I gave a further description of this colony in f The 
Ibis , (1882, p. 418). 
