( -^3 ) 



THE GENUS EUTOXERES. 



^\'heu looking over Mr. Barou's collection from Ecuador, we were struck b\' 

 fiiiJiiig- in it, three different species of Eutoxerc.s of the aquila group. Tliey were 

 already put down as three different species by the collector, who believed that one 

 was E. Iicterura, and that the two others were probably new species. We found 

 that one was Eittoxeres aquila (Bourc), the second E. heterura Gould, and the 

 third, in our opinion, a new species, which we called E. baroni, after the collector. 

 The former {E. aijiiila) was procured east of the Andes, the two others west of the 

 Andes. The peculiar E. com/dminii (Bourc.) was not met with by Mr. Baron. 



4.1. Eutoxeres aquila (Bourc). 



Wc received a series in fine plumage, collected in July aud August, on the Rio 

 Pastassa, east of the Andes. They agree entirely with a good number of skins from 

 Bogotd, Colombia, that we compared. Their rectrices have (as Mr. Salvin justly 

 described in Cat. B., .xvi., p. ".^61) the shafts white for about half their distal ends, 

 the web adjoining gradually becoming more broadhj white towards the tip. 



One adult male has one of the rectrices abnormally entirely white, while the 

 corresponding one on the other side is normally marked. 



40. Eutoxeres heterura Gould. 



This species was originally described by Gould in Ann. and Mag. 2\. H., 1868, 

 i., pp. 4.0.0-7. 



Gould mentioned the " great variability in the markings of the tail-feathers,'" 

 and, in our opinion, confounded two different forms under his name, as all subsequent 

 ornithologists also did — namely, one with a dark greenish-brown tail and with large 

 white tips to the outer rectrices, wliich on the outer web have the white colour 

 terminated by a transverse edge ; and another species with an olive-grey tail, and 

 with very small white tips to the rectrices, if any. Both these forms were received 

 and described originally by Gould, and both are among his types in the British 

 Museum. Therefore it l.ieoomes — as no single specimen was marked as " type " by 

 the author— difficult and arbitrary to those who distinguish these two forms which 

 of them should be regarded as tj'pical E. heterura Gould. 



We think that the form with the dark greenish-brown tail, aud with the large 

 white tips transversely edged on the outer web of the outer pair of rectrices, is by 

 far the commoner in collections ; and in most collections only this one is repre- 

 sented as E. heterura. Moreover, Gould first of all mentioned, I. c., p. 455, the form 

 with the big white tips. We therefore think we cannot be blamed if we choose to 

 restrict the name of E. heterura Gould to this species. 



This, then, is distinguislied from E. aquila (from (Jolombia and the east side of 

 the Andes in Ecuador) by the shafts of the rectrices being white for less than half of 

 their distal ends, and the white on the outer webs of the lateral rectrices being defined 

 transverseig. Besides, it must be mentioned that the tail-feathers are more 

 attenuated towards the ends, a character only visible in younger individuals in the 

 two allied species, but ajiparently always pronounced in E. heterura. .Several authors 

 stated tliat the central spots to the feathers of the under surface are buff, while they 

 are white in E. aquila. This seems to be wrong, as we have seen specimens of 

 E. aquila with ii distinct buff colour on the breast-feathers, and specimens of 

 E. heterura that had them as white as any iudividnals of E. aquila. 



