NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE. 



Vol. IV. DECEMBER, 1897. No. 4. 



VARIOUS NOTES ON HUMMING-BIRDS. 



By ERNST HARTERT. 



1. Phaethornis malaris (Nordm.). 



WHEN reviewing the genns Phaethornis in the [his for July (1897), I re- 

 cognised considerably more species than Mr. Salvin in Cat. B. Brit. Muts. 

 Vol. XVI., but now I have already to allow one more ! My friend Count von Berlepsch 

 has fully convinced me that I made a mistake in uniting Phaethornis malaris 

 (Nordm.) and P. supcrciliostis (L.). They are two species differing not only con- 

 siderably in size, but also in the coloration of the throat and in the colour of the 

 under tail-coverts. It is quite clear from Brisson's figure and measurements that 

 his " Polytmns cayennensis lougicaudus," on which Linn^ founded his Trochilus 

 supercilio.vfs, is the small bird which Gould called afterwards P. /ratcrculi/s. 

 They are certainly not the females of tlie large P. malaris, the differences between 

 the sexes not being so great nor the coloration so different in the genus Phaethornis. 

 It is true that my P. s. moorei and P. s. guianoms are very closely allied, but I 

 think that the comparison of a series of both shows some slight differences, and 

 therefore I prefer to separate them snbsiiecifically. 



Future investigations will have to be made to show whether P. ririilieanilata 

 is 'the, female of P. idaliae, as Salvin and others have supposed, but the proofs of 

 that do not seem to be conclnsive enough, and I ])refer therefore to keep them 

 separate for the present. 



2. Cyanolesbia kingi (Less.). 



There seems to be a conspiracy against the name Ornismya kiruji of Lesson, 

 although there is no doubt that it was given to a Cyanolesbia. The difficulty is to 

 find out to wliich form the name should be applied. From the figure and descrijition 

 it is clear that it was meant fnr a form with a blue spot on the throat and a mostly 

 blue tail. This excludes all forms except the form with blue tail from Bogota and 

 C. coclestis. I have now — thanks to the kindness of Mr. Loddiges — examined the 

 Cijanolesbiae in the Loddiges collection. They arc partly " C. goryo" (the blue-tailed 

 common Bogota form), jiartly C. codestis. Tlie Bogota specimen is not so well stuffed 

 as the others, therefore most likely the oldest, and thus it may be accepted as the 

 "type." Furthermore, the first locality ever given for " Ornismia kinyV^ (Boissonneau, 

 Rec. Zonl. 184o, p. 7) was Bogota, as the original place "Jamaica" was, of course, 

 an error. We arc therefore, if we wish to preserve the oldest name, entitled to use 

 the name C. hinyi for tlie lilue-tailed Bogota form (wliich was called C. ijoryo on 

 p. 48 of my synopsis of the genus in Nov. Zool. 1. p. 48). Mons. Eug. .Simon iu 

 his catalogue has also adopted the name kingi for this form. 



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