280 TANAGRIDA. 
Hill Station (M‘Leannan 1), Paraiso Station (Hughes), Obispo (O. S.).—Souta 
America, from Colombia’ and Guiana to Bolivia® and Brazil 19. 
Western and north-western birds of this species long passed under the name of 
Tanagra melanoptera *, as in most of them the olive edging to the primaries is so indis- 
tinct when compared with that of South-eastern Brazilian examples as to render the 
outer half of the wing almost black. The difference is very slight at the most, and 
somewhat variable in extent, and being so, we think that the more recent practice of 
recognizing only a single species of this form the most correct. We notice, however, 
that the black-winged birds spread over a large part of Tropical America, extending 
from Guiana, the Upper Amazons, and Bolivia to Ecuador, Colombia, and Central 
America as far as Costa Rica. The Brazilian bird, the true Zanagra palmarum, is almost 
restricted to the south-eastern and southern parts of that empire; but Mr. Wallace’s 
Para specimens are of this race rather than of the dark-winged one found in Guiana on 
the northern side of the Amazons. 
Mr. Bartlett © speaks of this Tanager as abundant on the upper and lower Ucayali 
and in the neighbouring districts, where these birds congregate and feed in flocks. 
They are active and cheerful, he adds, and have a rather shrill note. Salmon’ obtained 
its nest at Remedios in Colombia: this he describes as placed in the fork of a shrub or 
small tree, and formed of grass-stalks mixed with roots and fibres, and lined and orna- 
mented on the outside with green moss. He says he never saw more than one egg in 
a nest, though he examined many. The eggs have a pale whitish ground, and are very 
thickly freckled with red-brown spots. 
In Costa Rica this bird entirely takes the place of 7. abbas, but in Honduras and 
northwards of this point the latter species prevails. One of the two no doubt is 
found in Nicaragua, but which one remains to be noted. 
RHAMPHOCCELUS. 
Ramphocelus, Desmarest, Hist. Nat. d. Tangaras, p. 5 (1805) ; Scl. P.Z. S. 1856, p. 127. 
- Ramphopis, Vieill. Anal. p. 82 (1816). 
We are acquainted with about twelve species of this purely Neotropical genus, five 
of which appear in our fauna. Of these two, Rhamphocelus passerinii and R. uro- 
pygialis ave peculiar to it. £. icteronotus and R. dimidiatus are species of North- 
western South America, and only enter our limits in the State of Panama, and 
i. luciani of the same State passes southwards into Eastern Peru. The widely ranging 
* This name is attributed by Mr. Sclater to Dr. Hartlaub, and the reference given to the ‘ Revue Zoologique,’ 
but without year or page. We have never succeeded in finding this description. The name, however, is 
sufficiently defined by Mr. Sclater in the P. Z. 8. for 1856, p. 235. 
