HYPOTHYMIS ROWLEYI.

Rowley’s Blue Flycatcher.

Zeocephus rowleyi, Meyer, in Dawson Rowley’s Orn. Misc. iii. p. 163 (1878).
Hypothymis rowleyi, Sharpe, Brit. Mus. Cat. Birds, iv. p. 278 (1879).

 

Tue late Marquis of Tweeddale, in his well-known memoir on the Birds of Celebes, has certainly proved
that, while it possesses a large number of peculiar forms, the island of Celebes is rather Indian in the
affinities of its avifauna than Austro-Malayan ; but inasmuch as there is also a strong Moluccan element
perceptible in the birds of the island, I propose still to include them in the present work, as the completion
of my ‘Birds of Asia’ prevents me from figuring them in that work, to which perhaps they would
more properly belong.

If, as Dr. Meyer first suggested, the present species had turned out to be a true Zeocephus, it
would have been a fact of the highest interest, as the latter genus is hitherto known only from the
Philippine archipelago. It is scarcely less mteresting, however, to find that it belongs to the strictly
Indian genus Hypothymis, which thus gains a more extended range. I am glad that the specific name
chosen by Dr. Meyer will perpetuate the memory of such an ardent naturalist and true patron of science
as the late Mr. George Dawson Rowley, whose untimely death was a real loss to ornithology.

Flypothymis rowleyt is nearly allied to H. puella from Celebes and the Sula Islands, and, like that
species, has no black collar or nape-spot, and has no black on the forebead or chm. It differs from 7. puella,
however, in having the under surface of a light silvery blue, while the colour of the back is a greyish
cobalt: in the Celebean species the upper and under surface are alike in their shade of blue. The type
specimen in the Dresden Museum still remains unique; it was procured by Dr. Meyer’s collectors in
Great Sangi Island, the avifauna of which, as far as we know, is Celebean in its character.

I take the accompanying description of the type from Mr. Sharpe’s ‘ Catalogue of Birds : ’—

« 4dult. General colour above greyish cobalt-blue, more grey on the rump ; lesser and median wing-coverts
like the back, the greater series and the quills light bluish grey, edged externally with the same greyish
cobalt as the back of the quills, internally dusky blackish ; tail greyish blue, dusky blackish on the inner
webs; sides of face more dusky greyish blue than the head; cheeks and under surface of body light
silvery bluish, darker on the throat, and more dusky blue on the sides of the breast; under wing-
coverts and axillaries like the breast. Total length 6°5 inches, culmen 0°65, wing 3°65, tail 3°6,
tarsus 0:95.”

I am indebted to Dr. Meyer for the loan of the type specimen, from which the accompanying life-

size figures have been drawn.

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