NESOCENTOR MILO.

Q :
‘Olomon-Islands Lark-heeled Cuckoo

Centropus milo, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856 26 Me ae
! og ‘ : pen tess Pp. 1366 Gray, Cat B: Tropical Isl. Pacific Ocean, p. 34 (1859).

me Dp... 7 SG : ; n
Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1869, p- 124.—Gray, Hand-l. B. ii. p. 213, no. 8974 (1870).—Ramsay, Proc
? . iC . yo .

Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, iv. p. 69 (1879).
Nesocentor milo, Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. ivy. p. 120 (1862).—Salvad. Ann

Mus. Civic. Genov. xiii. p. 463
(1878).—Id. Orn. Papuasia e delle Molucche, i.

p- 385 (1880).—Grant, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1888, p. 191.

 

THE genus Nesocentor was founded in 1862 by Drs. Cabanis and Heine for the reception of several Lark-
heeled Cuckoos from the Austro-Malayan Subregion; but apart from their sombre style of coloration, we
can see no reason for separating these birds from the genus Cextropus, though in the present instance we
have adopted the nomenclature of Count Salvadori, the leading authority on Papuan ornithology.

The type specimen of the present species was discovered by the late John Macgillivray on the island of

Guadalecanar, where it has since been met with by Mr. Wox

dford and other travellers. The typical example
is not quite adult, and was described by Count Salvadori in bis work on the birds of New Guinea. He

appears afterwards to have entertained some doubt as to the specimen described by bim in England having

been really the type; and on requesting Dr. Sclater to re-examine the specimen, he was assured by the
latter gentleman that it did not exist in the Museum. How this mistake arose we cannot say, and we
have no immediate recollection of a visit from Dr. Sclater to examine the specimen in question ; it may
have been temporarily mislaid during the removal of the Natural History collections down to South
Kensington, but we are happy to say that it is quite safe in the national collection.

As far as is known, the present species is only found in the tsland of Guadalcanar, in the Solomon group,
where it replaces the sanalllee N. ateralbus of New Ireland, which is a violet-black bird with a white head.
The latter is also said to inhabit the Solomon Islands on the faith of a collection sent by Mr. Krefft to
Dr. Sclater in 1871. So many birds in this collection really came from New Ireland, and not from the
Solomons, that we may fairly suppose that the locality for N. ateralbus is wrongly recorded,

In NV. milo the adult male is black, sides of the body greenish black with a steel-green gloss; the head,
neck, mantle, throat, and breast creamy white ; the abdomen black. Total length 28 inches, culmen 2:3,
wing 10°], tail 13°5, tarsus 2°65. The young is rufous streaked with black, and somewhat resembles the
adults of other Lark-heels.

The figures in the Plate are taken from an adult ma
Reginald Tupper, R.N., and presented by him to the British Museum.
orange. Mr. Woodford gives the iris as red, and the bill and feel
‘ey feet, while in an adult fema

le and a young female shot on Guadalcanar by Lieut.
He says that the iris was yellow or
t black, in an adult male from Aola.

irl le and an immature bird the iris
Another adult male had a brown iris and gt € and «

was dark grey and brown respectively. [R. B, S.J