Mr. P. L. Sclater on the Fissirostral family Bucconidse. 483 



" This bird/' says Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, " is not 

 rare in most provinces of South Brazil, and very common in 

 many of them. It is found in certain spots sitting still and 

 immoveable upon the high isolated branches of the forest trees. 

 From time to thne it flies after an insect into the air, and falls 

 back again to its place like a true Muscicapa. It is a stupid, 

 still, melancholy bird, but likes to sit high and not low, and near 

 the ground, like the other Tamatice. As in form and colour it 

 rather resembles a swallow, the Brazilians call it Andurinha do 

 mato — wood-swallow. The resemblance is greatest when the 

 bird sits upon the ground, for its feet are little adapted for 

 walking, and it consequently shuffles along like a swallow does. 

 Its flight is light and undulating. Sitting upon a high point 

 where it can overlook the neighbourhood, it often emits a short 

 call-note. It is anything but timid, and very easy to shoot. It 

 is usually found where the woods are varied with open countiy, 

 on the edges of the woods, but likewise in the interior of them. 

 The food of these birds consists of insects, of which I have found 

 the remains in their stomachs. On the Rio Grande del Belmonte 

 I observed how these birds nest. In the month of August I saw 

 them enter a round hole in a perpendicular sand-bank on the 

 river, like a kingfisher's. After digging about two feet in a 

 horizontal direction, we found two milk-white eggs upon a bad 

 lining of a few feathers." 



This bird, which was first described by Pallas as long ago as 

 1783, was rightly separated by Mr. Gould from the rest of the 

 family on account of its very lengthened form of wing. M. Nat- 

 terer's observations on its habits as given by Mr. Gould coincide 

 with those of the Prince Maximilian just quoted, and I may add, 

 that Mr. Wallace's account of its mode of nesting is likewise the 

 same as that previously given — not that any confirmation was 

 necessary to the evidence of so accurate an observer. 



A Trinidad skin of this bird in my own collection is much 

 smaller than the Brazilian examples, and the colours are gene- 

 rally more intense. The Guiana specimens in the British Mu- 

 seum collected by Schomburgk are also rather smaller, and 

 agree nearly with mine from Trinidad. 



The same variation occurs in many other birds, amounting, or 

 being considered to amount in ^ome cases to a specific difference. 



2. Chelidopteha albipennis, Bp. 

 Chelidoptera albipennis, Bp. Journ. f. Orn. 1853, p. 47. 

 Ch. prsecedenti similis, sed minor et raagis nigra: abdomine 

 intense castaneo : tectricibus alarum inferioribus candidis : 

 remigibus primariis basi, sccondariis apice latissime albis. 

 (Bp. /. c.) 

 Hah. in Venezuela; Curaana. 



31* 



