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MELILESTES ILIOLOPHUS, sawaa.

Long-plumed Honey-eater.

Melilestes iliolophus, Salvad. Ann. Mus. Civic. Genoy. vii. p. 951 (1875),
e delle Molucche, ii. p. 316 (1881), iii. p. 543 (1882)
(1882).

Arachnothera iliolophus, Gadow, Cat. Birds in Brit. Mus. ix. p. 3, pl. i. fig. 2 (1884).

Xvl. p. 75 (1880).—Id. Orn. Papuasia
Sharpe, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool. xvi. p. 437

 

Tux genus Mellestes has been united by Dr. Gadow to the genus Arachnothera; but in our opinion Count
Salvadori was right in placing it with the MJekphagide or family of Honey-suckers, rather than with the
Sun-birds or Nectariniide, where it is located by Dr. Gadow. The long fluffy plumage and the silky tufts on
the flanks are characters which ally the genus to the Honey-suckers, though the general appearance of
the birds is very much that of the Spider-hunters (Arachnothera).

Count Salvadori includes four species in his genus AZelilestes, of which the present and AZ. affinis
(a species summarily suppressed without just cause by Dr. Gadow, who has never seen a specimen) are
distinguished by their greyish-olive underparts. A fifth species has been discovered since Salvadori
wrote, which is figured in the present work.

The present species was discovered in the islands of Jobi and Miosnoum, in the Bay of Geelvink, by
Dr. Beccari, and we cannot find any marked difference between some of the typical examples now in the
British Museum and others obtained in South-eastern New Guinea, where it has been obtained by
Mr. Goldie and Mr. H. O. Forbes in the Astrolabe Mountains. The following description is from one
of Mr. Goldie’s specimens :—

Adult. General colour above dull olive-green, the head a little duller than the back; feathers of the lower
back and rump very long and silky, and a little lighter than the rest of the back ; wing-coverts like the back ;
the primary-coverts and quills dusky brown, edged with olive-green like the back, the secondaries more
broadly ; tail dusky black; lores and feathers round the eye ashy olive ; ear-coverts lighter olive; under
surface of body very pale yellowish, ashy on the cheeks and throat; sides of the body with long Be plumes
of paler yellow; under tail-coverts like the abdomen, and washed with pale Coe 5 axillaries light
yellow like the sides of the body; under wing-coverts light ashy brown, washed with yellowish olives quills
dusky below, whitish along the edge of the inner web. Total length 3-9 inches, culmen 0°85, wing 2:7,
tail 1-45, tarsus 0°85.

The figures in the Plate are drawn from two specimens procured by Mr.

district of the Astrolabe Mountains.

H. O. Forbes in the Sogeri

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