STIGMATOPS ALBO-AURICULARIS, Ramsay.

Broadbent’s Honey-eater.

Stigmatops albo-auricularis, Ramsay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. iii. pp. 75, 285 (1879), iv. p. 100 (1879).—Salvad.
Ibis, 1879, p. 325.—Id. Ann. Mus. Civic. Genov. xvi, p. 76 (1880).—Id. Orn. Papuasia, ete. ii. p. 324
(1881).

Glycyphila albtauricularis, Gadow, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. ix. p. 217 (1884).

 

Tue difficulty of distinguishing the smaller Honey-eaters is so well known that no apology will be needed for
offering to our readers a Plate of the present bird, drawn from the only example which has as yet been
brought to Europe. The two most recent writers on the Honey-eaters, viz. Count Salvadori and Dr. Gadow,
had neither of them ever seen a specimen, and the former author placed it in the vicinity of Stigmatops
ocularis. Not only, however, is it a much darker bird on the upper surface, but it is easily distinguished from
that species by the squamulated appearance of the throat and breast, the feathers of which have dusky centres.
This character allies it to Stigmatops squamata, in the vicinity of which species it has been more correctly
placed by Dr. Gadow; but from the latter bird it is easily recognized by its brown upper surface and by the
absence of the yellow on the throat and breast. It was discovered by Mr. Kendal Broadbent in South-
eastern New Guinea,

The typical example having been brought to Europe by Mr. Ramsay daring his official visit to the
International Fisheries Exhibition, we have been enabled to give the following description of it :—

Adult male. General colour above nearly uniform brown, only slightly mottled with obscure dusky centres
to the feathers of the head, neck, and mantle; wing-coverts like the back, the greater series, bastard
wing, and primary-coverts dusky brown, edged with lighter brown, tinged with olive on the two latter;
quills dusky brown, edged with olive-greenish, the inner secondaries with ashy brown; tail-feathers dusky
brown, obscurely margined with dull olive; lores dingy brown like the head; an auricular patch of silvery
grey, with numerous minute dots of white forming a conspicuous eye-patch ; cheeks and chin dull ashy ;
throat and breast dingy white with an olive tinge, thickly mottled with dusky triangular centres to the
feathers ; sides of the upper breast nearly uniform brown; sides of body and flanks dull ashy, slightly
mottled with dusky white edges ; abdomen white; thighs dingy brown ; under tail-coverts dull white with
brown centres; axillaries and under wing-coverts dull whitish with pale dusky centres ; quills dusky below,
whitish alone the inner web. Total length 5:0 inches, culmen 0°89, wing 2°75, tail 2°3, tarsus 07.

The single figure in the Plate is of the size of life, and has been drawn from the type specimen kindly

lent to us by Mr. E. P. Ramsay. [R. B. S.J