TODOPSIS BONAPARTILI, Gray.

Bonaparte’s 'Todopsis.

Todopsis cyanocephala, Gray, P.Z.S. 1858, p. 177, pl. exxxiv (nee Quoy et Gaimard).

Todopsis bonapartii, Gray, P. Z.S. 1859, p. 156, 1861, p. 434.—Finsch, Neu-Guinea, p. 168.—Meyer, Sitz.
k. Akad. Wien, lxix. pp. 78, 80.—Sharpe, Journ. Linn. Soc. xiii. pp. 316, 498.

Todopsis, sp., Salvad. Ann. Mus. Civic. Genoyv. ix. p. 25.

Tchitrea bonapartii, Gray, Hand-l. B. i. p. 334, no. 5032.

 

Tun present species very closely resembles the preceding one, and was mistaken for it at first by the late
Mr. George Robert Gray in 1858. In the course of the following year, however, the receipt of the true
Lodopsis cyanocephala from New Guinea showed him that the species from the Aru Islands was a different
one; and he named it thereupon after Prince Bonaparte, the original proposer of the genus. Since that
date very little information has been added to our knowledge of the Aru bird, until in 1876 it was
discovered on the mainland of South-eastern New Guinea by the late Dr. James, who found it there, about
eight miles east of Yule Island, << inhabiting clumps of trees and shrubs in the midst of scrub.” This
solitary note is, I believe, all that has ever been published respecting the habits of any species of Todopsis.
Signor D’Albertis met with it in the same part of New Guinea, at Naiabui. Count Salvadori, in recording
the latter specimen, thought that the bird from South-eastern New Guinea might be 7. mysoriensis of Meyer
—a bird which certainly very much resembles 7. donapartii, but differs (so Mr. Sharpe tells me) in having
the upper back black and only the mantle ultramarine, whereas the latter colour is more extended in 7
bonaparti, occupying both the mantle and upper back.

The following descriptions are from Mr. Sharpe’s ‘ Catalogue of Birds :-—

Adult male. Crown of head bright cobalt of an enamelled texture, running in a narrower line down
the nape; a narrow frontal line, lores, feathers above and below the eye, cheeks, ear-coverts, sides of
neck and hinder neck, the latter washed with purple, mantle, scapulars, and lesser wing-coverts purplish
cobalt ; the greater series of coverts and the inner secondaries black, externally edged with purple ;
primaries black, with scarcely any purple edgings ; back velvety black, glossed with purple, the upper tail-
coverts of the last-named colour ; tail-feathers purplish black, inclining to duller black on the inner webs ;
entire under surface of body deep purple, much brighter on the breast and flanks ; under wing-coverts
black glossed with purple. Total length 5:8 inches, culmen 0°65, wing 2°3, tail 2:5, tarsus 0°95.

Adult female. Crown of head cobalt, extending in a rather broad band down the nape; a narrow frontal
line, lores, sides of face including a narrow eyebrow, and the sides of the hinder crown and nape purplish
black ; upper surface of body maroon-chestnut, as also the scapulars and wing-coverts, some of the outermost
coverts of the thumb spotted with lilac; quills dark brown, externally edged with rufous like the back, the
secondaries tipped with pale rufous; tail-feathers dull indigo, obscurely waved under certain lights, ao
broadly tipped with white; entire throat purplish blue, descending onto the sides of the chest ; centre of
of the fore neck, chest, and middle of the body white, the sides of the body light maroon-chestnut, including
the thighs and under tail-coverts; the sides of the upper breast distinctly glossed with lilac; under wing-
one very light rufous, paler on the lower series, a spot on the edge of the wing oe ul
black ; feet dusky olive; iris dark” (JVallace, MS.). Total length 5:9 inches, culmen 0°65, wing oe
tail 2°65, tarsus 0°9. ;

In the Plate I have figured a male of the natural size, with the head of a ae and “a the poe 18) a bird
which I take to be a young one, all from the Aru Islands. I was at first inclined to believe that it might be
an old female exhibiting differences*from the same sex of 7. cyanocephala and wanting the lave throat. As,
however, the British Museum contains blue-throated females of T. bonapartii from the Aru islands, I believe

now that it must be only an immature bird, which has not gained the blue throat of the adult.

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