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Show 704 DR. W. BLASIUS ON BIRDS FROM CERAM. [Nov. 28, with another bird before me (female) which Dr. Platen has sent from Amboina (cf. Blasius and Nehrkorn, " Dr. Platen's ornithologische Sammlungen aus Amboina," Verh. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, xxxii. 1882, p. 418, sp. 12): both are still young, as appears from the bluish borders of the red feathers of the breast. The Brunswick Museum possesses an evidently old specimen of the same species from Celebes, which has no blue borders to the feathers of the breast, but a more conspicuous red spot above the lores and a more bluish shade on the head. The nearly related species A. bengalensis, Gm., of which the Brunswick Museum possesses a specimen (male) from the East Indies, purchased from Verreaux, has a more greenish tint on the back; the pretty large spot above the lores and a stripe which begins beneath the eyes and runs backwards are of a clear brown-red, of the same colour as the underside. The specimen is in the Brunswick Museum. 10. CEYX LEPIDA, Temm., Salvad. i. p. 417. "Male. Iris brown. L. 14 cm., D. 1*8 cm. Bill and feet coral-red. Lokki, Ceram, 22 November 1881." The specimen is still young, as is evident by the smaller development of the blue spots on the head, and the paler colouring of the brownish spot on the lores, in comparison with four old birds of the same species now before me which Dr. Platen has sent from Amboina. (cf. Blasius and Nehrkorn, torn. cit. p. 418, sp. 13). The Brunswick Museum possesses one specimen of the same species from Batchian, which in its much darker and less conspicuous spots on the head, and its more intensely red-brown underside, coincides exactly with that variety of colouring which is described by Salvadori for the group of Halmahera. The specimen is in the Brunswick Museum. 11. CYANALCYON LAZULI, Temm., Salvad. i. p. 461. Three specimens (8)-(1) "Nov. 18, 1881," (2) "Nov. 29, 1881," (3) "Nov. 30, 1881." For all the label repeats -.-"Male. Iris brown. L. 20 cm., D. 4 cm. Bill and feet black. Lokki, Ceram." The more ample material sent by Dr. Platen (besides the three males from Ceram, I have before m e four males and two females from A m boina, with exact description of sex by the hand of the collector) gives me occasion to point out an evident mistake of Salvadori in the descriptions of male and female, into which he has certainly been led by the paucity of material before him. (He had only one specimen, evidently wrongly labelled " male," from Amboina in the Museum of Genoa, and another, probably equally wrongly marked " female," in the Museum of Turin.) Already Schlegel mentions in the * Mus. Pays-Bas' (Alcedines, p. 42), "Male, a. poitrine blanche; " and in the 'Revue' (p. 3 1 ) : - " Jeune femelle, poitrine blanche, comme dans les males, mais com- |
