Bangs, Birds from Costa Rica and Chiriqui. 



103 



to me to ask if I had made a mistake ! My identification was correct, and 

 the birds from the Volcan de Chiriqui are true G. coslaricensis, differing in 

 no wise from Costa Rican specimens. 



The Underwood collection contains a splendid series of Geotrygon which 

 includes all the species known from Costa Rica Geotrygon albi venter, G. 

 montana, G . m-dyiu'iixis, G. lawrencei, G. costaricensis and G. chiriquensis. I 

 think it would be difficult to select more inapplicable names than vera- 

 guensis, costaricensis and cliiriqnensis, which three of these doves are doomed 

 to bear, misleading any one not familiar with the birds to suppose they 

 were local forms, confined each to the country the name of which it bears. 



Pyrrhura hoffmanni gaudens subsp. nov. 



Type from Boquete, Chiriqui. c? adult, No. 9117, coll. of E. A. and O. 

 Bangs. Collected March 3, 1901, by VV. W. Brown, Jr. 



Characters. Similar to true P. hoffmanni of Costa, Rica, except in having 

 the feathers of top of head especially the occiput more or less tipped 

 with red and with red shafts; underparts slightly darker green less 

 yellowish green. 



MEASUREMENTS. 



In Catalogue of Birds in British Museum, XX, p. 230, Salvador! noticed 

 this difference between Costa Rican and Veraguan specimens of P. hoff 

 manni. When I compared Brown's Chiriqui birds, twenty-seven in num 

 ber, with the Costa Rican material in the U. S. National Museum I was 

 of opinion that it was not a constant difference, as there was in that insti 

 tution one Costa Rican skin with some red tips to the feathers of the nape, 

 and I had one skin from Chiriqui that had none of the usual red tipping. 

 I find on closer inspection that this latter bird is young not full grown 

 and even the yellow markings of the head are ill defined. All the skins 

 in the Underwood collection are without a trace of these red-tipped feath 

 ers, and the one Costa Rican specimen, before referred to, is the only one 

 to show anything of the sort. It has the red-tipped feathers and red 

 shafts developed about as much as in Chiriqui skins that show such mark 

 ings the least. Chiriqui skins usually, also, have more yellow on the crown 

 than Costa Rican ones, and slight as the differences are it seems best to 

 recognize two subspecies. I for one do not hold that subspecific characters 

 must be absolutely constant. In this very case I do not think that one 

 Costa Rican specimen, out of the large number examined, showing the char 

 acters of the southern form, should be considered to disprove the existence 

 of such a form. 



