Page:Stray feathers. Journal of ornithology for India and its dependencies (IA strayfeathersjou11873hume).pdf/47

Phanicopterus Minor. 31 I shall only add that I shall be very much obliged by the receipt of grey and black wagtails from all parts of the country, provided only that the ser, date, and locality are carefully noted for each specimen; unless the two former particulars, at any rate, are given, the specimen would be of little real use. A. O. H.

 

''P. Minor Geoff. St. Hil: Tull, Soc: Philoma, 11, p. 97. P. Parvus, Vieill: Anal, p. 69, pl. col. 419; Gal. des. Ois b. 273. P. Minor, Jerd. Cat. No. 374. P. Rubidus, Fielden, Ibis, 1868, p. 496.''

IT is some years now since I first obtained from the Delhi Mu- seum, a specimen of a small and specially rosy flamingo, the shape of whose bill (the upper mandible of which when closed sank almost entirely within the lower mandible,) indicated it as un- donbtedly specifically distinct from our larger Indian bird. Dr. Jerdon and myself both carefully examined this bird, compared it with the Pl. col., and with descriptions in other works, and came to the conclusion that it was Phanicopterus Minor. A year later Captain Fielden obtained three small brilliantly rosy flamingoes, at Secunderabad, and described them under the speci- fic name of Kubidus, in the Ibis for 1868. His birds were shot in July. My bird, which was obtained in January, was one of six brought in by native fowlers, who professed to have captured them on the Sambhur Lake.

In the Ibis for 1869, p. 440, Mr. G. K. Gray added the weight of his great authority to the distinctness of Captain Fielden's new species Rabidus. He published at the same time drawings of the head and bill of all the known species of flamin- goes, and while separating Rubidas and Minor as belonging to the same sub-genus, which he called Pheniconaias, he thus indicated the difference between the two supposed species.

"Fig. 3, (Rubidus,) differs from Fig. 8, (Minor,) by the pos- terior margin of the lower mandible being very narrow and then slightly curved to the lower surface, thus giving an appear anee of angulation. Fig. 8, (Minor,) has on the other hand the posterior margin of the lower mandible obliquely straight and broad to the surface beneath; the lateral edge of the lower mandible has a prominent longitudinal channel on the basal half, from which spring several less prominent ramifications that proceed upwards to the lateral margin."