OCR Text |
Show 502 ON A COLLECTION OF BIRDS FROM BORNEO. [June 23, June 23, 1887. Prof. W. II. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. Mr. Sclater laid upon the table the skin of a White-nosed Monkey of the genus Cercopithecus, which had been presented to the Society's Menagerie by the Rev. W . C. Willoughby, December 9, 1883, and had died on the 13th November last year. Mr. Sclater had now ascertained from Mr. Willoughby that this specimen had been obtained by him in Unyamwezi, Eastern Equatorial Africa, and was said to have been brought from Man-yuema, on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. It was undoubtedly different from the ordinary form of C. petaurista of West Africa, hitherto received by the Society, and was at once recognizable by having the last two thirds of the tail red. It appeared to be the species designated by Schlegel (Mus. des Pays- Bas, Simiae, p. 87) Cercopithecus ascanias, but Mr. Sclater much doubted whether it was legitimately entitled to bear that name. Until the synonymy of the West-African Monkeys was more completely worked out, it was not advisable to give it a new name, but it was interesting to have ascertained the correct locality of this Monkey. Mr. Sclater exhibited a specimen of the Pheasant from Northern Afghanistan which he had described in 1885 (P. Z. S. 1885, p. 322, plate xxii.) as Phasianus principalis, and stated that he was pleased to find that his name for this bird antedated that bestowed upon ti by Bogdanow, Phasianus komarovi1, and must therefore be adopted. M. Menzbier had compared typical specimens of P. komarovi with birds from the Murghab and had found them identical. The specimen now exhibited had been kindly presented to Mr. Sclater by Gen. Sir Peter Lumsden, G.C.B., F.Z.S. The following extract was read from a letter addressed to the Secretary by Mr. A. Everett, C.M.Z.S,, dated Labuan, April 21st, 1887:- " You will be interested to know that Mr. John Whitehead has recently returned from the Kina Balu mountains in Northern Borneo, where he made a stay of two months on one of the spurs, at an elevation of 5000 feet. Mr. Whitehead has collected birds chiefly, and there appears to be a considerable proportion of novelties among the skins, although perhaps many of them are only new to the Bornean avifauna. Among those which seem to m e to be really new to science are a huge Calyptomena, six times the size of the common Green Manakin, but, like it, coloured brilliant green and velvety black, only the coloration is differently disposed ; a long-tailed Eurylaemid, which is a very beautiful bird about the size of 1 Bull. Acad. Sci. St. Petersb. xxx. p. 356. |