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Show 1884.] THE EAST-INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 427 is elevated into a new species, G. timorlaoensis (Meyer). Dr. Meyer admits that the separation is based on very minute differences1, which, however, he believes will be found constant. On comparing the Timor-Laut birds with K e specimens in the British Museum determined by Count Salvadori, the case stands as follows :-Timor- Laut skins vary from 240-290 millim., while G. keyensis (Salv.) ranges from 235-255 millim. Length of wing in the former 165- 170 millim., and in G. keyensis (Salv.) 175-185 millim. The tail is shorter in G. timorlaoensis than in G. keyensis; while the tarsus agrees in both. In Timor-Laut specimens the external web of the outermost primary, where in the upper portion the colour is blue, and in the lower green, exactly agrees with a specimen from Ke, of the 'Challenger' collection, determined as G. keyensis by Salvadori. Both these are males. A female from Ke has the same region of this feather blue throughout its length ; while a female from Timor-Laut has a very narrow yellowish edge to the green-blue margin of the primary. A female, of the ' Challenger' naturalists, also determined by Salvadori as G. keyensis, is identical in coloration ; while, lastly, the colour of the under surfaces of the wings can scarcely be detected to differ. It would appear therefore, so far as the skins from Timor-Laut and Ke, in the British Museum and in m y own collection, afford material for forming an opinion, that these differential characters will not be found to have the constancy that Dr. Meyer expected. The wing measurements certainly are less in Timor-Laut specimens. It is probable that the differences in coloration are due to age onlv, and are not sufficient to separate the Ke from the Teniruber bird. Artamus muschenbroeki, Meyer, is the name proposed for the Timor-Laut Wood-Swallow, which had been determined by Dr. Sclater as A. leucogaster (Val.) (P.Z.S. 1883, pp. 51 & 200). Of the Artamus from Dr. Meyer's identical locality I have in my own collection three specimens. I have examined carefully seventeen others from different localities, in the very long series in the British Museum derived from Celebes, the Philippines, Sumatra, Java, Lombock, Flores, Timor, Batjian, Burn, Halmaheira, Goram, Aru, Batanta, and from N. Australia. The species in the Dresden Museum from the underlined localities are admitted by Dr. Meyer to belong to A. leucogaster. It is impossible to separate ray Timor-Laut skins from specimens collected in Zebu by the ' Challenger' Expedition, and determined by Lord Tweeddale (P.Z.S. 1877, pp. 544-545). The colour in both is absolutely the same. Lord Tweeddale, however, remarks on the difference of dress-"one in which the upper plumage is of a light bluish and cinereous colour, the other where it is of a more smoky brown and bluish ash. This does not seem to depend on sex ; for one of these examples (Zebu 36y) is marked c?» while I possess a Luzon example exactly similar, which Dr. Meyer determined to be a 2 • The other Zebu example (No. 370) is marked $, and is in 1 " Geoffroius [timorlaoensis], G. keyensi, Sal., simillimus, sed minor et primaries extimae pogonio externo virescenti diversus.'' |