OCR Text |
Show 1880.] MR. W. A. FORBES ON TWO PLOCEINE BIRDS. 475 was proposed by Mr. Sclater, as the type of a peculiar family, Leptoso-midae. This should be placed in the series of Passeriform Anomalogonatous birds as defined by Prof. Garrod1, next to the Coraciidae, with which its relations are most intimate. Indeed it is possible that, when the anatomy of the allied genera, Brachypteracias, Geo-biastes, and Atelornis'2 becomes fully known, the truth of Mr. Sharpe's proposition3, thatLeptosoma should be relegated to the position merely of a subfamily of the Coraciidae, may be established. 4. O n two rare Ploceine Birds now or lately living in the Society's Menagerie. By W . A. F O R B E S , B.A., F.L.S., Prosector to the Society. [Eeceived June 2, 1880.] (Plate XLVII.) 1. VIDUA SPLENDENS. (Plate XLVII. fig. 1.) Vidua splendens, Reichen. Orn. Centralbl. 1879, p. 114. On the 17th of July, 1878, Mr. Archibald Brown presented to the Society, with some other birds, a specimen of a small Weaver-bird, which, being then " out of colour," was entered on the list of additions as Vidua principalis, the common and well-known " Pin-tailed Whydah bird." Last summer this bird had assumed an entirely blue-black plumage, like that of Hypochera nitens, also a common cage-bird. But I was struck by the appearance of the beak and feet, these being of a bright coral-red colour, whereas in H. nitens they are only pale flesh-coloured. The tail-feathers, too, were slightly tipped with white, and the two central ones became gradually slightly more lengthened than the others, and so projected beyond them. The accompanying figure (Plate XLVII. fig. 1) shows the appearance of this bird at that time, as sketched from life by Mr. Smit. Unfortunately it died on the 29th of March in the present year, being then in very poor plumage, as it was moulting; on dissection it proved to be a male. Thinking I had here a new species of Hypochera to deal with, I took the skin with me, on a late visit to Berlin, to show to Drs. Hartlaub, Cabanis, and Reichenow. Thelatter gentleman speedily recognized this bird as the young male of a species he had lately described from E. Africa as Vidua splendens (Orn. Centralbl. 1879, p. 114). Of this only a single specimen was collected at Kibaradja, E. Africa, by Dr. Fischer, and is now in the Berlin Museum. A sketch from this bird is reproduced in the distant figure of the accompanying Plate ; as will be seen from it, the male bird, when fully adult, possesses enormously elongated rectrices, the two of each i P. Z. S. 1874, p. 119, and I. c. 1878, p. 99. 2 The osteology of these genera, with some other points, is figured in Gran-didier's work on pis. 97-99, 101, 102, 103a. » Ibis, 1871, p. 187. |