OCR Text |
Show 1880.] MR. W. A. FORBES ON DENHAM'S BUSTARD. 477 Dr. Cabanis described a Pytelia1 cinereigula, oi which there had been two specimens lately received at the Berlin Museum from East Africa. One of these had been collected at Zanzibar by Dr. Fischer, the second at Mombassa by Drs. Hildebrandt and von Kalkreuth. During my late visit to Berlin I at once recognized in this species Finsch's Pytelia wieneri; and by the kindness of Drs. Cabanis and Reichenow I was allowed to bring back with me to London a third skin of the same bird, still more lately received, and collected in Angola, at Malange. A comparison of this with our living bird has quite confirmed the opinion I had already arrived at, so that Cabanis's name must yield to Finsch's2. The Australian habitat is, of course, a mistake, Pytelia being an entirely African form. Of thered-beaked section of Pytelia, to which it belongs, P. wieneri can only be confused with P. melba and its ally (or geographical form) P. citerior. The differences between these and the bird under consideration have already been pointed out by Drs. Finsch and Cabanis in their descriptions; suffice it to say that P. wieneri is at once, inter alia, distinguished from these by its very different markings below, and also by the red of the chin and throat being separated from the greenish-yellow of the lower parts by the interposition of a grey band. In our living bird the beak is bright red and the feet pink; the irides are dark red. 5. Note on a Specimen of Denhanr's Bustard (Eupodotis denhami). By W . A. F O R B E S , B.A., F.L.S., Prosector to the Society. [Received June 2, 1880.] The interest attached to the existence, or otherwise, of special mechanisms connected with the habit of "showing off" in the males of the Otididae, together with the fact of the subject of the present note being of a species rarely seen in captivity, so that some time may elapse before a further opportunity of examination offers itself, must be m y excuse for this short and imperfect notice. On March 20, 1872, two specimens oi Eupodotis denhami, from W. Africa, I believe, the first and only ones of this species possessed by the Society, were presented by Governor Ussherand C. D. O'Connor, Esq. Of these one lived in good health in the Gardens for many years, dying on May 12 last, after having been attacked by a companion hen of Otis tarda that was in the same enclosure with it. Having never observed any signs of " showing off" in this bird, I had always considered it to be a female. This surmise, however, proved incorrect, for on dissection it turned out to be a male. 1 This description is reproduced in the J. f. O. 1878, p. 101. I may here remark that, in m y opinion, Pytelia, though perhaps a " nonsense name," is sufficiently "like Latin" fo.be retained, and not replaced by " Zonoyastris," or altered into " Pytilia," as proposed by Dr. Cabanis (I. c. p. 100). 2 I also found a single specimen of this bird, with no precise locality, in the Museum at Hamburg. |