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 si)eciniens. 



The Underwood collection contains a splendid series of Geolrygon which 

 includes all the species known from Costa Rica — Geolrygon albivenier, G. 

 montana, G. verngunms, G. lawrencei, G. coslaricensis and G. cldriquensis. I 

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

 guensis, coslaricensis and cJiiriquensIs, which tliree of these doves are doomed 

 to bear, misleading any one not familiar witli tlie birds to suppose tliey 

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



Bangs 



Pyrrhura hoffmanni gaudens subsp. nov. 



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

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



Characters. — Similar to true P. Iiolf'manni of Costa. Rica, except in having 

 the featliers of top of head — especially tlie occiput — more or less tipped 

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

 yellowish green. 



MKASUREMENTS. 



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

 tliis difference between Costa Rican and Veraguan specimens of P. hoff- 

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

 ber, witli 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 tlie existence 

 of such a form. 



