OCR Text |
Show 1868.] MR . j. GOULD ON FOUR NEW BIRDS. 219 regard the bird as a member of the old genus, while others may consider its colour, markings, and tout ensemble sufficiently different to justify the divisional name of Drymochares. In size the bird is about twice that of the English Wren, Troglodytes europceus. STURNUS PURPURASCENS, sp. nov. Face, head, throat, and neck deep bronze, passing into green on the upper part of the back and breast; lower portion of the back and upper tail-coverts purplish blue; abdomen dusky brown, with a bronzy lustre; wing-coverts deep coppery or bronzy red; wings greyish brown, each feather bordered by a velvet-like line of black, showing very conspicuously on the tips of the secondaries; tail similar, but the velvet edging not so well defined ; under tail-coverts black, tipped with white. A few of the feathers on the upper part of the back and on the upper tail-coverts with a spot of white at the tip ; bill yellow ; feet reddish-brown. Total length 8£ inches, bill 1\, wing 5f, tail 3, tarsi l£. Hab. Erzeroum. Remark.-I have had in my collection for many years three skins of a very beautiful Starling, all collected in Erzeroum, two of which are adult and one a yearling bird. Compared with Sturnus vulgaris on the one hand and S. indicus on the other, this bird will be found to differ in a remarkable manner from both. In size it is considerably larger than either, while in colouring it is sufficiently different to constitute it a new species. Beautiful as is our own Starling, the Erzeroum bird far exceeds it even in its finest nuptial and breeding dress, the entire back being of a lovely purple, while green is the prevailing tint of that part of S. vulgaris; the resplendent bluish-green of the wings of the European bird is replaced in the new species by shining coppery red, the lengthened plumes of the chest are bluish green instead of coppery, and the breast is coppery instead of the green or bluish green seen in S. vulgaris. The two birds, in fact, present a singular transposition of colouring ; and the Erzeroum bird, for which I propose the name of S. purpurascens, is, as above stated, by far the finest of the two. The adults, as in S. vulgaris, are more or less speckled with white at the tips of the feathers of the back, according to age ; and the young of the year presents all the characters of the adult, so far as regards the purple colouring of the back and the bronzy red of the wings, but, as is the case with a specimen of our own Starling of the same age, has the entire plumage very distinctly guttated with white, while the bill, as is usually the case, is of a dark hue. AULACORHAMPHUS SEXNOTATUS, sp. nov. Bill chestnut-red, with the centre of the culmen above almost black; sides of the base of both mandibles edged with white, much more broadly on the lower than on the upper; crown and all the upper surface green, tinged with sulphur, deepest on the shoulder; on the rump a spot of blood-red; bare eye-orbits dull brownish |