252 TROCHILIDZA. 
the French Consul-General at Carthagena, M. Barrot, after its discoverer. Gould then 
described a male from Popayan as H. purpureiceps, supposing it to differ from H. barrotz, 
which he recognized in a specimen from Veragua sent him by Warszewiez. The Popayan 
bird, he stated, had a shorter tail and greater extension over the nape of the blue 
colour of the crown than the bird from Veragua. The former character is due to the 
age of the bird, the latter to the make up of the skin. The Veragua bird was figured 
in the ‘Monograph of the Trochilide’ as ZH. barrot?. Females from Ecuador were 
associated with H. purpureiceps. Gould, subsequently, in his ‘Introduction to the 
Trochilide,’ changed his view and placed //. purpureiceps as a synonym of H. barroti, 
and supposing the Veragua bird to have come from Carthagena (the original locality 
of H. barroti!), gave it a new name, H. violifrons. We do not see any ground what- 
ever for supposing that more than one very constant species of this blue-headed form 
of Heliothrix exists. 'The way the feathers of the head are arranged when the skin is 
made up fully accounts for the apparent difference in the extension of that colour on 
the crown; and as regards the length of the tail of the male, we find considerable 
variation exists, due, we believe, entirely to the age of the birds compared. The sexual 
difference in the length of the tail is very obvious, and it seems nearly certain that this 
difference becomes as it were more emphasized by the gradual shortening in successive 
moults of the tail of the male as it advances in age. 
The range of Heliothrix barroti is now known to extend over the whole of Central 
America, from the confines of Mexico southwards. It is not uncommon in the great 
forest-districts of Eastern Guatemala and British Honduras, and in the former country 
we not unfrequently met with it during visits to the low-lying hot districts. The white 
under surface of the body and white lateral rectrices render it a conspicuous object in 
some forest-path or in an opening by a running stream, and these features contrast 
strikingly with the dark green of the surrounding vegetation. It is, nevertheless, rather 
a shy bird, and never seen in any numbers together. 
It seems to be wholly absent from the forests of Western Guatemala, but passes 
southwards on the eastern side of the cordillera to the State of Panama, where it occurs 
on both sides of the main mountain-chain. Its southern extension probably reaches as 
far as the end of the forest-region of Western Ecuador. In all cis-Andean regions, 
throughout the valley of the Amazons and Guiana, Heliothrix auritus alone is found, 
H. auriculatus finding a home in South-eastern Brazil. 
Taczanowski'* tells us that M. Siemiradski, when at the Bridge of Chimbo in 
Ecuador, observed a male of H. darroti bathing in a stream. The bird chose for that 
operation a small cascade of a few inches in height, into which it plunged, returning 
quickly and shaking itself an instant in the air a few inches above the stream. 
Repeating this manceuvre for about five minutes it flew away. 
