XI.—Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, &c.
(Plate III.)
WE are happy to be able to state that letters have been received from Mr. Wallace, dated Ternate, September 2nd, announcing his safe return from New Guinea about a fortnight before that time. Mr. Wallace gives by no means a favourable account of Havre-Dorey as a collecting-place, and says that he has never made a voyage "so disagreeable, expensive, and unsatisfactory as that now completed." He suffered greatly from illness and from bad and insufficient food, and was only just sufficiently recovered to work at cleansing and packing has collections. His servants suffered as much as himself, two or three of them were always sick, and one of his hunters died of dysentery. Not only as he unable to procure any of the rarer Paradise-birds himself at this spot, but he could not even purchase a single skin of them. "It is certain," says Mr Wallace, "that all but the two common yellow species" (Paradisea apoda and P. papuana) "are very rare, even in the places where the natives get them, for you may see hundreds of the common species to perhaps one of the rarer sorts. I sent two of my servants with seven natives a voyage of 100 miles to the most celebrated place for birds—Amberbabei—mentioned by Lesson, and after twenty days they brought me back nothing but two of P. papuana and one of P. regia." He goes on to say, "My only hope now lies in Waigiou, where I shall probably go next year, and try for P. rubra and P. superba. Even of P. papuana I have not many, as my boys had to shoot them all themselves. I got nothing from the natives at Dorey. You will ask why I did not try somewhere else, when I found Dorey so bad. The simple
answer is, that in the whole mainland of New Guinea there is no other place where my life would be safe a week. It is a horribly wild country. You have no idea of the difficulties in the way of a single person doing anything in it. There are a few good birds at Dorey, but full half of the species are the same as at the Aru Islands, and there is much less variety. My best things are some new and rare Lories*." In a letter written from Ternate in March last, before starting for Havre-Dorey, Mr. Wallace remarks, speaking of the Eastern tropics generally, "This part of the world is very poor in species compared with South America. In Java, so rich, so varied, and so well explored, there are barely 300 species according to Müller, a number which any one spot in tropical America would probably furnish if well explored" In the same letter, with reference to the distribution of the Parrots, he says, "The Psittacidæ are very interesting. It is, however, almost impossible to get all the species of each locality, some being always scarce and difficult to shoot. The greatest confusion exists as to their distribution, owing to their being carried from island to island by the native traders. This I hope in a great measure to set to rights. Almost every island of any extent has some peculiar species, but there are others which extend over a considerable range of the Archipelago. The representative species in the different islands are often very closely allied. In Gilolo I have found the true Geoffroiius cyaneicollis, which is quite distinct from G. personatus of Amboyna, and also from the Aru species, which, if different, as I think, from the Amboyna one, is new†. In my second Macassar collection I have sent a Trichoglossus‡, which I think new—the most western of the genus. At Manado, in the north of Celebes, I shall find many of the rare birds which do not occur at Macassar. I have a pair of the superb Pitta maxima of Forsten,
* Among these is what Mr. Wallace thinks is a new species of Charmosyna
† This will stand as Geoffroiius aruensis, having been described by Mr. G. R. Gray from Mr. Wallace's specimens as Psittacus aruensis (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858, p. 183).
‡ The Trichoglossus from Macassar is T. ornatus. There are examples of this species in the Levden Museum from Celebes collected by Forsten, and from Bouton collected by Müller.
from Gilolo." Mr. Wallace's second Macassar collection has been received since he wrote thus. In it and his first collection he has transmitted many interesting species, Buceros cassidix, B. exaratus, Basileornis corythaix, Streptocitta albicollis, Phœnicophaus callirhynchus, Spilornis rufipectus*—all types peculiar to Celebes; and among the Psittacidæ, Tanygnathus mülleri, Bp., a fine species of Prioniturus, and Trichoglossus ornatus. In the last collection we were surprised to recognize in a strongly-built Corvine bird, Prince Bonaparte's Gazzola typica (Compt. Rend. vol. xxxvii. p. 828, et Notes Orn. p. 6). Prince Bonaparte gives New Caledonia as the locality of this bird, which is very singular, as the Streptocitta of Celebes is also attributed, in Labillardière's 'Voyage,' to New Caledonia. But the fact is, that Labillardière visited Celebes as well as New Caledonia, and the specimens from each country must have been mixed up together. The true position of the Gazzola is certainly near Corvus dauricus, however Prince Bonaparte may deride its being labeled "Corvus dauricus de la Nouvelle Calédonie," and we are not at all sure that it is generically separable therefrom. Another interesting bird in Mr. Wallace's last Macassar collection is a curiously-marked Thrush of the section Geocichla, allied to G. interpres† of Java and Sumatra, but having the whole back as well as the head chestnut-red. For this bird, of which two examples only were sent, we propose the name Geocichla erythronota‡. From Lombok Mr. Wallace has transmitted the true Geocichla interpres.
Mr. Fraser, who is now collecting in the Andes of Ecuador, dates his last letters from Pallatanga, on the Pacific slope of the western range of the Cordillera, south-westwards of Riobamba, in the tierra caliente. His first collection from this spot, which has just arrived, contains about 110 species, among which are
* Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857, p. 222.
† Temminck, Pl. Col. 458.
‡ Geocichla erythronota, Sclater.
G. suprà castanea: alis, caudâ, lateribus capitis et corpore subtùs ad medium pectus intensè nigris; maculâ utrinque inter oculum et rictum, alterâ in regione auriculari, tectricum alarium apicibus et primariorum ad basin marginibus externis, rectricis extimæ maculâ terminali et secundæ maculâ minore, albis: abdomine crissoque albis, ventre nigro tanquam squamato: rostro plumbeo, apice flavâ pedibus flavis: long. tota 8·0, alæ 4·5, caudæ 3·0.
VOL. I. I
Ibis, 1859. PL. III.
Wolf hth
M & N Hanhart, Imp.
CEPHALOPTERUS PENDULIGER