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Show 918 DR. A, B. MEYER ON A N E W ECLECTUS. [Nov. 29, hue of a colour the consultation of a plate is not satisfactory. The red colour of the hack agrees rather well with that of E. cardinalis. The bill of E. riedeli is weaker than those of E. pectoralis fern, and E. roratus fern., even smaller than that of E. cardinalis. E. riedeli, therefore, proves to be a well-defined species, in the same sense as the other species of the genus, viz. an insular variation from one and the same stock. Good luck having put into m y hands a new species from a locality which has been suspected to be the habitat of E. cornelia, I am obliged to give way concerning m y doubts as to the specific value of the last-named bird (see ' Verhandlungen der k.-k. zool.-hot. Gesellschaft zu Wien, 1874, p. 184), and now suppose that its habitat will be somewhere in these eastern parts of the Malay Archipelago. Unfortunately, only one specimen of E. riedeli has been sent by Mr. Riedel, and no other Eclectus at all from any of the dozen or more islands from which he forwarded specimens. I do not suppose that E. westermanni, Bp., is the male ofE. riedeli, as the size of these two birds appears to differ; but this question can only be decided when actually green specimens arrive from Cera or its close neighbourhood. After this discovery of a red Eclectus without blue or violet on the breast, belly, and back, not in captivity, but directly from the forest, I am rather inclined now to look on E. westermanni also as a good species (see I. s. c). The island of Cera, or Cerra, or Sejrah, belongs to the Tenimber or Timorlaut group, and is situated on &the west of the larger island of Timorlaut, only separated from it by a small sea-arm. The small islands to the west of Timorlaut are celebrated for their tortoise-shell; and therefore dealers from Amboina and Banda go there every year; Cera has about 2500 inhabitants. I mention these data, which are not generally known to ornithologists, in the hope that some one, travelling in the far east, may profit by them and make a trip to Cera from Amboina or Banda. The species of Eclectus which occurs on the nearest island is E. pectoralis, on Kei (about 150 miles distant from Cera, the shortest distance between the Timorlaut islands and Kei being only about 90 miles), the female of which (E. linnai auct.) differs most considerably from E. riedeli. We now know five forms of red Eclecti, which differ from another much more than do the green males-a very interesting fact, showing that, if variation occurs at all in consequence of insular isolation, both sexes are not always liable to it in the same degree. It is to be hoped that we may soon learn more about E. westermanni, E. cornelia, and E. riedeli, and about other links of the chain, if such still exist. The more forms known the more instructive appears the insular variation and the extraordinary sexual diversity of this genus. Thanks to the researches of Dr. Krukenberg of Heidelberg, we now know that the yellow pigment (zoofulvm) which produces the green colour of the mate Eclecti is chemically the same as that which gives the yellow colour to the under tail-coverts and the apical parts of the tail of E. roratus female (E. grandis auct.), and that the red colour of the female |
