

268 Count Salvadori on some New-Guinea Birds. 
abundant, and each of them has a concealed mesial yellow 
line, which only appears on moving the feathers; the greater 
upper wing-coverts and the scapulars have yellowish tips ; the 
quills are olive-brown above, and have a great part of the 
inner web towards the base yellow; the shafts of both the 
remiges and rectrices are brown above and yellow underneath ; 
the underparts are yellow, with a slight tinge of olive on the 
front neck, especially on the middle of the feathers; the bill 
is black, a little paler at the base. 
Now it is quite evident that this specimen has several cha- 
racters of the adult males of Xanthomelus aureus, and others 
of the bird named Sericulus xanthogaster. In common with 
X. aureus it has the head above orange-red, some black fea- 
thers on the sides of the head and on the throat; and the 
feathers of the mantle, although of an olive-brown colour, 
begin to show the shape of those of the adult males. From 
these characters it appears quite certain that the above-men- 
tioned bird is a male of X. aureus in transitional plumage. 
The characters in common with Sericulus xanthogaster are 
the olive-brown colour of the upper parts, the long and nar- 
row concealed yellow stripes on the middle of the feathers of 
the mantle, the similar colouring of the quills, olive-brown 
externally, and with the greater part of the inner web yellow, 
the shafts of the remiges and of the rectrices brown above, 
yellow underneath, and the reddish or fulvous colour of the 
sides of the head. 
Turning now to the two specimens collected by Signor 
D’Albertis, which agree with Sericulus xanthogaster, one of 
them seems a little older than the other: in the younger one 
the feathers of the mantle are shorter, with the concealed 
mesial yellow marks narrower, the throat is pure fulvous red- 
dish, while in the other it is tinged with yellow; and in the 
former the lower part of the front neck and upper part of the 
breast have dark irregular lines or bands, as is shown in 
Elliot’s figure of Chlamydodera xanthogastra, while in -the 
other specimen those bands have already disappeared, and 
only the middle of each feather of the same region appears a | 
little darker. 

