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Show 710 DR. W. BLASIUS ON BIRDS FROM CERAM. [Nov. 28, the outer tail-feathers protrudes only for about 1*5 mm. on the outer web and does not reach the tip by 3 cm. This last black-tailed specimen possesses only twelve tail-feathers (if two feathers are absent on account of moulting, they are at any rate not the outer ones), while all the other specimens, as also the one from Amboina, have fourteen (or thirteen) tail-feathers. The male (No. 1) and the two females from Ceram, as well as the male from Amboina, are very like each other with regard to the colouring of the tail, and stand nearly exactly intermediate between the white-tailed (No. 2) and the black-tailed specimen (No. 3). With regard to the black spots on the lower abdomen and under tail-coverts, the white-tailed male (No. 2) does not show them, while No. 1 has only a slight trace of them on the belly and distinct black apical spots on the tail-coverts. The spots are a little less distinct in the female (No. 5), but exist in both places; while the male (No. 3) has strongly marked spots only on the belly, and the female (No. 4) has them only on the tail-coverts. The male from Amboina is similar to No. 3. I will only add that in the female (No. 5) among the incomplete tertiaries, the rest of which are white, one feather on the left side, standing in the midst of the white ones, appears exceptionally almost as blackish as the tertiaries of M. luctuosa generally are. The last three specimens Nos. 3, 4, and 5 have been retained for the Brunswick Museum. 20. MEGAPODIUS FORSTENI, Temm., Schlegel, Mus. Pay-Bas, Tinami (1880), p. 70 ; Salvad. Prodr. Orn. Papuas., Ann. Mus. Civ. Genova, xviii. p. 7, sp. 5 (1882). "Male. Iris dark brown. L. 34 cm., D. 1 cm. Bill horny brown. Skin round eyes black, feet dark brown. Lokki, Ceram, 29 Nov. 1881." The specimen is exactly similar to a male of the same species sent by Dr. Platen from Amboina and at present before me (cf. Blasius and Nehrkorn, torn. cit. p. 430, sp. 35). M. forsteni differs from the nearly allied species M. freycineti, Quoy et Gaim., represented in the Brunswick Museum, in the somewhat different shade of colour of the plumage (which is on the whole uniformly brown), and in its somewhat smaller size. The specimen is in the Brunswick Museum. 21. BUTORIDES JAVANICA (Horsf.), Salvadori, Prodr. Orn. Papuas., Ann. Mus. Civ. Genova, xviii. p. 334, sp. 61 (1882). Ardea javanica, Horsf., Finsch, Neu-Guinea, p. 183; Rosenberg, Malayisch. Arch. 1879, p. 324. " Female. Iris golden yellow. L. 40 cm., D. 1 cm. Bill black. Skin round eyes and feet yellowish. Lokki, Ceram, 19 Nov. 1881." The specimen has uniform black-green lustrous feathers on the head, some of which form a long crest, and broad ferruginous edgings |