286 TANAGRIDA. 
(G. Wf. Whitely®), Omoa (Leyland®); Nicaracua, Mosquito coast (Wickham’), 
Chontales (Belt 18); Costa Rica, Orosi, San Carlos, Sarapiqui (v. Frantzius !), 
Navarro (Cooper 1+), Angostura (Carmiol 14), Tucurriqui (Arcé). 
This beautiful species is restricted in its range to the hot low-lying forests of the 
eastern side of the Cordillera from Southern Mexico to Costa Rica. Occasionally, 
Sumichrast tells us **, it ascends the mountains to an elevation of nearly 4000 feet, in the 
State of Vera Cruz; and we ourselves observed it in the forest-country north of Coban 
in Vera Paz, at a height of between 3000 and 4000 feet. At Choctum, however, we 
found it more numerous than elsewhere, a forest-region lying at an elevation of about 
1200 feet. Here it frequented the openings in the forest and the sides of rivers and 
streams, keeping to the lower branches of trees and shrubs rather than to the 
tree-tops. 
Southwards of Guatemala we have traced this species through Honduras and Nica- 
ragua to Costa Rica, but always on the eastern side of the mountains. It is thus a 
species peculiar to our region. 
The sexes of P. sanguinolenta are coloured exactly alike; in Rhamphocelus the 
female is always a much duller coloured bird, and not unfrequently very different from 
the male. 
PYRANGA. 
Pyranga, Vieillot, Anal. p. 32 (1816) (type Tanagra rubra, Linn.) ; Scl. P. Z. 8. 1856, p. 123. 
Phenisoma, Sw. Classif. B. ii. p. 284 (1837). 
Sixteen species are now included in this genus, of which no less than ten are found 
within our limits. Four of these are migratory birds, which spend the summer in North 
America and pass their winter in Mexico and Central America, some of them travelling 
far beyond into the southern continent. P. hepatica, a species of southern type, is also a 
bird of Mexico which passes the frontier of the United States. The peculiar species of 
our territory are—P. erythrocephala of the highlands of Southern Mexico, P. roseigularis 
of Northern Yucatan, P. figlina of British Honduras, and P. erythromelena and P. 
bidentata, both of which enjoy a wide range from Mexico to Panama, but do not pass 
southwards beyond our limits. Only one southern species, P. testacea, extends its 
range into Central America, as far as Nicaragua. 
Of the five remaining species, two, viz. P. hemalea and P. saira, are close relations 
of P. testacea in Guiana and Brazil respectively. P. azare of Paraguay and Bolivia is 
closely allied to P. hepatica. P. ardens is a southern form, in northern and north- 
western South America, of P. erythromelena; and P. rubriceps, the only well-marked 
species of Pyranga in South America, is found just beyond our border in Colombia. 
Thus it will be seen that, though one of the most widely distributed genera of Tanagers, 
its focus is Mexico and Central America. At the same time, it is the only genus of 
Tanagers found in North America, where, however, four of the five species are strictly 
migratory birds. 
