PQECILODRYAS PLACENS.

Yellow-banded Robin.

Eopsaltria placens, Ramsay, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, iii.

Peecilodryas flavicincta, Sharpe, Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. 5th series, vol. iii. p. 313.
Pecilodryas placens, Sharpe, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool. xiv. p. 630.

 

My first acquaintance with this brightly coloured Robin was in the month of March 1879, when five
specimens were sent to this country by Mr. Kendal Broadbent, whose recent researches in South-eastern
New Guinea have earned him a reputation as one of the best collectors in Australia. The collection has
been described by Mr. Bowdler Sharpe in the ‘ Journal of the Linnean Society of London ;’ but a diagnosis
of the present species was published by him in the April number of the ‘ Annals.’ Scarcely, however, had
Mr. Sharpe’s description been published and become beyond recall, when a paper of Mr. Ramsay’s was
received in this country, containing an account of the collections made in south-eastern New Guinea by
Messrs. Goldie and Broadbent. This paper purports to have been read as long ago as the 30th of
September 1878 ; and at any rate the description of Mr. Ramsay’s Lopsaltria placens must have been published
long before that of Mr. Sharpe’s Pacilodryas flavicincta. The former gentleman remarks on the structural
peculiarities of the species as showing a likeness to the genus Lewcophantes of Sclater ; and that genus,
Mr. Sharpe has just shown us in the fourth volume of his ‘Catalogue of Birds,’ must be considered a
synonym of my genus Peecilodryas.

It is much to be regretted that the specimens sent by Mr. Broadbent were sold in London with an
assurance that they had been sent direct to England, whereas it now turns out that a portion of the collection
had also been sent to Sydney. Hence Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Ramsay were both led to describe the new
species independently of each other; and thus a bird coming from such a recently explored field as 8.E.
New Guinea is introduced to the notice of ornithologists with two synonyms affixed to it in the twinkling of
an eye. The skins forwarded to Sydney are marked by Mr. Broadbent as having come from the mountain-
scrub of Goldie’s River.

The following is a translation of Mr. Sharpe’s original description of P. flavicincta.

Adult. General colour above yellowish green; the wing-coverts and quills dusky black, edged with the
green colour of the back; tail-feathers dusky brown, externally edged with green, and having a small white
tip; crown and nape dark ashy grey ; chin, fore part of cheeks, and ear-coverts uniform with the head, the
latter rather blacker; hinder part of cheeks, lower part of throat, and jugular region bright yellow, as also
the sides of the head, forming a broad collar across the throat; fore neck and upper breast yellowish
green; rest of under surface of body very bright yellow; under wing-coverts and axillaries white washed
with bright yellow. Total length 5°3 inches, culmen 0°7, wing 3°60, tail 2-2, tarsus 0-9.

One of the figures in the accompanying Plate represents a specimen in my own collection, the other that

in the British Museum.