( 150 ) 



the throat and tliat of the abdomen. Th. balzani is evidently a distinct species. 

 The Triug Mnseum has received it from the Beni IJiver in East Bolivia, where 

 Mr. A. Maxwell Stuart shot it. 



CHLOROSTILBOX. 

 Besides the forms included in the genus Chlorostilbon in the Catalogue of Bir(fii 

 I must, without hesitation, unite with it the members of the so-called genus 

 Panychlora. The colour of the tail alone can certainly not serve for generic 

 separation, and the interramal space is not in all the species of Paw/chlora, as far 

 as I can see, more feathered thau in all the forms of Chlorostilbon, besides that 

 this slight difference is hardly of generic value. Genera are, in my opinion, made 

 for the convenience, and not for the inconvenience, of systematic workers, ami 

 therefore, granted that colour alone cannot serve for generic separation, Chloro- 

 stilbon and Fanychloru are better united. The species of these groujis are often very 

 closely allied, and some of them must be split into several subspecific forms, which 

 here and there pass into each other. Thus the Mexican Chi. caniveti is slightly 

 modified towards the south, the specimens from Guatemala having a less deejdy 

 forked tail, those from Costa Rica a still less deeply forked tail, besides other slight 

 differences (see Cat. B. XVI. p. 47), and, as a rnle, specimens of the three forms 

 can well be distinguished, though occasion.ally it seems impossible to classify certain 

 individaals. Therefore it is not possible to separate them specifically, as stated by 

 Salvin, I.e., but they may stand as subspecies. 



Mr. Salvin, Cat. B. XVI. p. 56, saysj " With typical specimens of C. daphne, 

 C. napensis, C. brei'icaudatus, and C. subfurcafus before me, I am unable to dis- 

 tinguish between them or to separate them from C. prasinns of Cayenne." It is 

 certainly true that these forms are closely allied, and at first, when looking at them 

 on a dark winter day in the British Museum, I did not notice much of the supposed 

 differences, except the different length of the bills. When, however, I had studied 

 the material in the collections of Mr. Rothscliild, ('ount Berlepsch, Mous. Eng. 

 Simon, and in the Paris Museum, I found that specimens from Cayenne do not 

 possess the blue tinge on the throat and foreneck, which is very strong (not only 

 faint) in those from Upper Amazonia and from the Roraima Mountains. The tail 

 in Cayenne birds is about square, the central rectrices being very little shorter 

 than the others, the outer ones slightly shorter thau the rest, while in C. subfiireatus 

 Berlp. from Roraima the tail is distinctly snbfurcated, the outermost rectrices 

 being longest, the central ones decidedly shorter. Moreover C. subfurcatus has the 

 beak about two millimetres shorter, but the wing is not constantly longer, though 

 Count Berlepsch states it to be longer. C. subjurcatus is, I have no doubt, specifically 

 distinct from C. prasinus, but it is so very much like C. daphne, and in fact only 

 distinguished from it by a two millimetres shorter beak, slightly shorter wing, and 

 a little more deeply forked tail (but not by a less blue tliroat), that it is best 

 considered as a subspecies of C. daphne, some skins of the latter from Peni being 

 hardly distinguishable from C. subjurcatus. We thus have two species, one only 

 known from the low country of Guiana, the other an inhabitant of fjie Upper 

 Amazons and the eastern jiarts of the Andes, which occurs in a slightly modified 

 form in the Roraima Mountains. 



C. breucaudatui is the name given by Gould to the bird of Cayenne, the very 

 one we call now C'. prasinus. It is true that Lesson's figure and description are 

 not exact enough to define with absolute certainty one of our present subspecies; 



