The following papers were read :— 1. ON THE GArruline BirdS, OR JAYS; WITH DESCRIPTIONS BY CHARLES LUCIEN, PRINCE BONA OF NEW SPECIES. (Aves, Pl. XVII.) Having elevated the Garruline Crows to the rank of a full family, the forty-eighth of my Natural Classification of Birds, I now consider the family Garrulidæ, (including, besides the Glaucopinæ, Baritinæ, and the Jays, also the Hopping Magpies, notwithstanding their stronger bill and closer relation to the Corvida,) as formed of four different groups (subfamilies or great genera as you may call them, according to your notions, and you admit or not subgenera). And I say four, although I do not separate the Magpies from the Jays, but consider them as Garruline, because to the three old subfamilies, Baritina, Glaucopine and Garruline, I now add a fourth, for the reception of a good many birds hitherto scattered in different families, whose affinity to the Jays, taken for mere analogy, is now clear and manifest to my eye. Garrulax, Actinodura, Oriolia, Turnagra, or rather Otagon, distinct from the much more Garruline Keropia, with those Kitte which are not Coraciine, are all members of this my new group, to which (however enlarged) I give or rather preserve the name Ptilorhynchine, as it includes also Chlamydera and Ptilorhynchus, which in Sturnida were out of their place. But the object of the present paper is merely the enumeration of the genera and species of my Garruline subfamily. The first that we meet, ending the Ptilorhynchina with Keropia, which may as well be the first of Garrulinæ, is the genus Platylophus, Sw., judiciously changed by G. R. Gray, 1840, into Lophocitta, hitherto composed of but one species from Java, to which I now add a second from Sumatra, introducing to you the bird called Garrulus histrionicus by Solomon Müller, struck in the native woods where he discovered it by its mimic gestures, whilst the skins he sent to the Leyden Museum suggested the name of Garrulus rufulus, Temminck, than which there can be no better for closet-naturalists. I introduce it thus in the Systema Naturæ. LOPHOCITTA HISTRIONICA, Bp. Minor: fusco-ferruginea; collari nigro; macula utrinque colli magná, supraoculari parvá, albá. Synonyms. Garrulus histrionicus, Müll. Garrula rufula, Temm. Fig. nulla. Hab. Sumatra; Borneo. The old species will stand as follows: LOPHOCITTA GALERICULATA, Gr. Major: nigra ; collari nullo; maculá utrinque colli magná, supraoculari parvá, albá. Synonyms. Corvus galericulatus, Cuv. Lanius scapulatus, Licht. Lanius coronatus, Raffles; Levaill. Hist. Nat. Parad. t. 42. The second genus of the family will be my Perisoreus or the Dysornithia of Swainson, a northern group composed also of two species only, both well known, the European and Asiatic Perisoreus infaustus and the American Per. canadensis; for brachyrhynchus, Sw., is the young of the latter; and as to Garrulus ferrugineus, Bechstein, we cannot think of admitting it as distinct, although sustained by Wagler; plate 48 of Levaillant, on which alone it is based, being much more like Perisoreus infaustus than the very plate 47 constantly quoted under that name. Third comes the true Garrulus, peculiar to the Old World, composed of our common Jay with its five closely-allied (or mere races), and two other more distinct, though hardly less typical, species; one of which, the chief object of the present paper, is certainly by far the handsomest, if not at the same time the largest, resembling most, especially by the small, lanceolate, white-shafted feathers of its throat, with barbs still more disjuncted, Garrulus lanceolatus of Central Asia, so well figured by Gould in his 'Century of Himalayan Birds'; which may be appreciated also in its adult state under the name of Garrulus gularis, and in immature plumage under that of Garrulus Vigorsi among the 'Illustrations of Indian Zoology.' Our new species, notwithstanding its stouter and longer feet, its higher and much more compressed bill, and elongated square tail, can by no means be called aberrant. (Aves, Pl. XVII.) GARRULUS LIDтHI, Bp. Rufo-vinaceus; capite colloque ex totis, alis, caudáque, saturatè azureis; fronte lorisque nigricantibus ; plumis gula lanceolatis, barbulis disjunctis, rachidibus albis : tectricibus alarum nigro-fasciolatis: remigibus, rectricibusque apicem versus nigricantibus, apice ipso albo. Long. 13 poll.; rostr. 1 poll.; alæ 7 poll.; caudæ 5; tars. 1" 8"". Typicus; quamvis ad ACTINODURAM accedens simul et ad CYANO PICAS! Rostrum albidum, altum, valde compressum: cauda elongata, æqualis. Color azureus capitis et colli sensim in rufo-vinaceum dorsi et abdominis transiens. Hab. The precise country of this Jay is not known; but Asiatic as it shows, and all circumstances induce us to believe, it must live in some very remote and unexplored occidental spot of China or IndoChina. The specimen described formed part of Baron van der Capellen's collection, purchased after the death of that Dutch governor of Malasia by Prof. van Lidth de Jeude of Utrecht. I detected it last week during a visit I paid to that most splendid perhaps of private collections with my learned friend Schlegel *. * We had a double object in view in visiting Utrecht and the munificent Professor, to whom it is more justice than compliment to dedicate his new Jay: 1. Of admiring the only adult bird in collections of the Japanese Sea-Eagle (Haliaë The tail alone, strongly rounded, would be sufficient to distinguish from our new species, and indeed from all others, GARRULUS LANCEOLATUS, Vig. Cano-vinaceus: pileo genisque Garrulus gularis, J. Gr. adult. N.B. The small coverts which in all other Jays are blue banded, in this are plain black and white (bipartite); which latter colour on the contrary is wanting on the quills, beautifully striated blue and black as are the small coverts of the others. The comparison with this last species was the only one necessary to establish; but, considering that no little difficulty is met with in discriminating the different European and Asiatic Jays, and what a confusion prevails among the synonyms of the remaining, which may be considered as six races of the same great species, I shall try to take advantage of my long experience, peculiar fancy for the group, and especially of the rich collection I now have at my command, in order to point out their discrepancies. 1. GARRULUS GLAN DARIUS, Vieill. Cinereo-vinaceus, dorso orbitisque concoloribus: pileo albo-cinereo, plumis elongatis medio nigris: genis rufescentibus: gula juguloque albis: remigibus primariis extus basi albis; secundariis obsolete cæruleo-fasciolatis: rectricibus nigris subfasciolatis. Major: rostrum validum. Corvus glandarius, L. &c. Synonym. Pl. Enl. 481; Levaill. Parad. t. 40, 41; Gould, Eur. t. 214. tus pelagicus, leucopterus aut imperator), whose monstrously powerful bill must really be thunderstriking! 2. Of ascertaining the supposed new species of Microglossus, of which you may have read in the Comptes Rendus' of the French Academy, and which I am delighted to say proves to be a specimen of the oldest known, more likely to get the second abolished than a third established. Schlegel (whose observations I shall always be happy to collect and profit by) declared that the two species of Microglossi will henceforth stand in precisely the same relation as the two Coracopsis (which he of course called Vasa) to each other. But even not considering that result of our investigation, our chief object would have become the least important, from the great variety of valuable and new animals we saw on all sides in the newly-built galleries and well-kept museum, especially among reptiles! And what can I say of the unique collection of fœtuses? Even Englishmen could not help being amazed at seeing in the midst of other wonders, the ELEPHANT and HIPPOPOTAMUS bottled up in spirits! No. CCVI.-PROCEEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. |