JAVAN CYORNIS.
- Muscicapa banyumas Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. (1822), 13, 146.
- Siphia banyumas Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1879), 4, 449; Everett, Jour. St. Br. As. Soc. (1889), 20, 132; Meyer and Wiglesworth, Birds of Celebes (1898), 1, 368; pl. 14, fig. 1.
- Cyornis banyumas Sharpe, Hand-List (1901), 3, 216 (Java); McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 71.
- Cyornis mindorensis Mearns, Phil. Jour. Sci. (1907), 2, sec. A, 356.
Mindoro (Mearns, McGregor); Palawan (Everett). Java.
“Adult male.—General color above uniform blue, the forehead brighter blue, extending backward over the eye; ear-coverts deep blue; a narrow frontal line from the base of the nostrils, lores, feathers round the eye, chin, and fore part of cheeks black; remainder of under surface of body rich orange-rufous, a little paler and inclining to white on the abdomen; sides of upper breast and thighs blue; wing-coverts blue like the back, the least and median series brighter blue, of about the same color as the forehead and eyebrow; quills dusky brown, externally blue, the inner secondaries entirely blue; tail-feathers dark blue, the outer ones black on the inner web; under wing-coverts and axillars orange-rufous, the edge of the wing blue; quills dusky brown below, lighter on the inner web. ‘Bill black; legs pale brownish lead-color; iris dark brown.’ (Everett.) Length, 142; culmen, 14; wing, 81; tail, 72; tarsus, 16.5.
“Adult female.—Similar to the male but distinguished by the white lores. ‘Bill black; legs purplish leaden gray; iris brown.’ (Everett.) Wing, 70; tail, 60; tarsus, 16.
“Young.—Robin like. Dusky brown with subterminal spots of orange-buff to all the feathers of the upper surface; wings and tail dusky, externally blue, the secondaries tipped with buff like the coverts; underneath orange-rufous, mottled with dusky margins to the feathers; abdomen whitish.” (Sharpe.)
“The existence of this species in Palawan rests upon a single skin collected at Puerto Princesa, which is indistinguishable from the male of S. banyumas as represented by a considerable series in the British Museum.” (Everett.)
In the Hand-List Sharpe restricts the distribution of the Javan cyornis to Java, although in the Catalogue of Birds he places in the synonymy of Siphia banyumas, the male collected in Palawan by Everett. Mearns has recently described, under the name of Cyornis mindorensis, two specimens which certainly seem to be distinct from C. philippinensis, but they agree with the description of C. banyumas and with the plate of that species in the Birds of Celebes. Mearns does not compare his species with C. banyumas, and he could not have done so, as there were no authentic specimens of C. banyumas at hand when he wrote his description. Unfortunately such specimens are still lacking. A male from Mariveles, Luzon and a female from Ticao Island differ from ordinary C. philippinensis in having the crissum orange-buff, but the color is not so deep as in the specimens from Mindoro. Cyornis mindorensis may eventually prove to be a distinct species, but for the present I shall consider it to be the same as C. banyumas.