LEISTES.—ICTERUS. 459 
Fuscescente-niger plerumque ochraceo indistincte striatus ; cauda frequenter pallide fusco transvittata, campterio 
alari et corpore medio subtus a mento ad medium ventrem coccineis; rostro corneo, pedibus corylinis. 
Long. tota 6:5, ale 3:6, caudse 2-4, rostri a rictu 0°75, tarsi 1-1. 
2 supra nigricans, cervino variegata, stria verticali superciliis et corpore subtus cervinis, pectoris lateribus 
et hypochondriis nigro guttulatis ; campterio alari coccineo, rostro pallide corneo. Long. tota 5:4, ale 
3-2, caudee 2:0. (Descr. maris et feminee ex Mina Chorcha, Panama. Mus. nostr.) 
Hab. Panama, Mina de Chorcha (Arcé®), Lion Hill (M*Zeannan *).—Sovrn AMERICA 
from Colombia ° to Ecuador *, Amazons Valley °, and Guiana 13, 
A well-known species of the northern portion of South America, ranging across the 
continent from the mouth of the Amazon to Ecuador and Colombia; it just enters our 
region in the State of Panama, whence we have specimens both from the line of the 
railway and from the neighbourhood of Chiriqui. Nothing has been recorded of its 
habits. 
Subfam. IV. JCTERINA. 
Nares plus minusve membrano obtecte ; mesorhinium altum, haud dilatatum, rotundatum ; tarsi breves, cauda 
rotundata. 
ICTERUS. 
Icterus, Brisson, Orn, ii. p. 85 (1760) ; Scl. Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xi. p. 362. 
It is now, we believe, generally admitted that the genus Jcterus cannot be satisfac- 
torily divided, though several attempts have been made to do so. Cassin, who carried 
this subdivision to the greatest extent, split up Jcterus into three genera, and each of 
these into a number of sections or subgenera; but this treatment of the genus has not 
met with much favour. Mr. Sclater, in the ‘ Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,’ 
vol. xi., placed all these names as synonyms of Jcterus, and adopted the three sections of 
it tentatively proposed by Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway in the ‘ History of North- 
American Birds.’ The definitions of these divisions are hardly satisfactory, for it will 
be seen that the first (A) and the third (C) only differ by one having the culmen and 
gonys “straight” and the other “nearly straight,’ and this character is hardly borne 
out by an examination of specimens. 
So intimately connected are the extreme forms of Icterus that we do not see our way 
to attempt grouping them by any but colour-characteristics, and such as are shown by 
the difference or similarity of the sexes. ‘These are mere guides to the determination 
of the species, and only serve to indicate the relationship of the species grouped together, 
rather than that of the groups themselves. 
The species of Jcterus are for the most part very well defined, if we make some allow- 
ance for differences of size and intensity of colour. 
Of the thirty-eight species included in Mr. Sclater’s Catalogue, to which we now add 
one, no less than nineteen belong to our region *. The rest are distributed throughout 
* The habitat, Panama, of J. dubusi is not sufficiently authentic for us to include the species in this work, 
58* 
