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Show 1877] THE MARQUIS OF TWEEDDALE ON BATRACHOSTOMUS. 421 field was the first naturalist who described (1820), and afterwards figured, one of its members, an inhabitant of Java-B. javensis. Temminck soon afterwards (1823) described and figured another species from Bencoolen, in Sumatra, obtained by Messrs. Diard and Duvaucel, probably under the auspices of Sir Stamford Raffles ; and a few years later (1830) Vigors made known the giant form of Sumatra, B. auritus, sent to England among the collections of Sir Stamford. In 1837 Mr. Gould added a fourth species, B. stellatus, describing it as inhabiting Java. Dr. Jerdon, in his Second Supplement to his 'Catalogue of the Birds of Southern India' (1845), announced the discovery by Capt. Roberts of a representative of the genus in Peninsular India,which, however, he never saw, and which up to this date remains unidentified. Not many years elapsed before Blyth (1847) published an account of a sixth species, obtained at Malacca by Mr. Frith, B. affinis; and two years later he received from Darjeeling the fragments of two nestlings, which he identified as belonging to this species (I. ci). In Ceylon, Layard discovered and so added another species to the list (which may or may not be the same as the South-Indian form)-a species described by Blyth ('849) under Layard's title of B. moniliger. The whole of these six or seven species were in rufous or rufous-brown plumage; but in 1850 Bonaparte (/. i. c.) made known the fact that each sex in one species at least (B. javensis) wore a plumage peculiar to itself-a statement reiterated in wider terms and confirmed by Prof. Schlegel (I. i. ci) four years later. This important fact did not deter Mr. G. R. Gray from describing in 1857 a bird in grey and brown mottled plumage obtained the year before by Mr. Hodgson's collectors at an elevation of some 3000 or 4000 feet behind Darjeeling, as belonging not only to a new species but to a distinct genus-Otothrix hodgsoni. From the year 1849 until the date of the visit of the 'Challenger' Expedition to the Philippines, the efforts of naturalists, while considerably increasing and correcting our knowledge of the geographical distribution of the Batrachostomi, had not made known any new species. Mr. Blyth had already announced the occurrence of B. auritus in Malacca; and Mr. Low has discovered it in Borneo. Mr. Motley obtained B. cornutus at Banjarmassing, in Borneo; and the Marchese Doria found it at Sarawak. Tickell has figured and described B. affinis from Burma ; and Lieut. Wardlaw Ramsay discovered the same species in the plumage of Otothrix hodgsoni on the Karen-nee hills in that country. The range of B. stellatus has been made to include Malacca by Mr. Blyth's researches, and extended to Borneo (Sarawak) by Marchese G. Doria. Mr. Bourdillon has quite recently discovered in Travancore examples of a species of the genus which, while confirming Dr. Jerdon's statement that one of its members occurred in Southern India, may prove to be a distinct form. And, lastly, the Philippine island Mindanao has been added to the area of thegenus (as restricted), by the discovery there made by the naturalists of the ' Challenger' Expedition of a large species. Examples of the genus, so far as at present recorded, therefore present themselves in Ceylon, Southern India (Wynaad, Travancore), |