Count Salvadori on some New-Guinea Birds. 269 
It is worth while to mention that in the plate 25 dis of 
Lesson’s ‘Oiseaux de Paradis’ a male is figured not quite 
adult (but older than the specimen in transitional plumage, 
which I have described above, having the orange mantle and 
the black throat), which has the wings olive-brown, and on 
the upper part of the breast those dark marks which have been 
described in Sericulus xanthogaster ; besides, in that plate of 
Lesson’s the shafts of the tail-feathers are yellow under- 
neath. 
If now I arrange in a series, first the two specimens col- 
lected by D’ Albertis (which agree with Sericulus canthogaster), 
first the younger one and then the older—second, the speci- 
men of Xanthomelus aureus in transitional plumage, which I 
have described above—third, the figure of X. aureus, which 
is to be found in the plate 25 dis of Lesson’s work—and last 
the fully adult males of X. aureus, we have a gradual series, 
which demonstrate most clearly that Sericulus xanthogaster, 
Schleg., is nothing else than the young bird of X. aureus. 
I wish also to mention that in all these specimens the bill, 
the feet, the wings, and the tail have exactly the same shape 
and dimensions. The bill in the younger specimen of the 
two referable to Sericulus xanthogaster is nearly all black, a 
little paler at the base of the mandible underneath ; in the 
other, which is a little older, the base of the bill is all round 
a little paler; in the young male in transitional plumage the 
base of the bill is more decidedly pale, but not so whitish as 
in the adult birds. 
I think that we can now fix the systematic position of 
Xanthomelus aureus more satisfactorily than it has been done 
hitherto. 
The young specimens of this species, which have been 
named Sericulus xanthogaster, show most certainly, as has 
been pointed out by Mr. Ellot, a great likeness to some 
species of the genus Chlamydodera; and, besides, when we 
consider the characters of the bill, of the feet, and of the 
wings of the adult birds of Xanthomelus aureus, we must ad- 
mit that there is a great similitude between this most bril- 
liant bird and the somewhat more plain ones of the genus 

















