BANGS AND PENARD: NOTES ON AMERICAN BIRDS. 379 



Bartica Grove, 2. Venezuela: Margarita Island, 2. Trinidad, 2. 

 Tobago, 1. Union Island (Grenadines), 1. Total, 18. 



Remarks. — This small form is intermediate in coloration between 

 T. m. melancholicvs of Paraguay and T. vi. chloronolns of Yucatan. 

 Within its range from Bahia to IMerida, Venezuela, we are able to detect 

 some geographical Aariation, but this is so slight that it would serve 

 no good purpose to recognize more than one form. Birds from Bahia, 

 of which we have unfortunately seen only three specimens, are not 

 quite so distinctive as birds from northern South America, but they 

 are certainly much" closer to the latter than to true melanchoUcus. 

 Our examples from Bahia are small like those from Guiana, but the 

 chest-band, although distinctly more yellowish than grayish, is some- 

 what wider. Since there is already a name available for the Bahia 

 bird, we prefer to adopt it for the entire series rather than to pro- 

 pose a new one for the more distinctive northern birds. 



We refer birds from Trinidad, Tobago, Margarita Island, and Union 

 Island, to this form, although they seem to be intermediate between 

 birds from Guiana and Central America. In our examples from the 

 islands mentioned the chest-band is like that of the Guiana birds, but 

 the throat is a trifle more whitish. We cannot, however, justify a 

 further subdivision based upon such a very slight difference, even 

 should it e^"entually prove to be constant. 



In describing Laphycfcs satrapa, Cabanis and Heine (Mus. Hein., 

 1859, 2, p. 77), drew the characters entirely from the Mexican bird 

 to which Lichtenstein had given the manuscript name satrapa (Berlin 

 Museum coll.). The only constant character mentioned in the 

 diagnosis, is the larger size, which fixes the name upon the form in- 

 habiting northern Mexico, known as Tyrannus melancholicvs couchii 

 Baird, and not upon the form inhabiting northern South America, 

 which is even smaller than true melancholicvs. As Ridgway (Bull. 50, 

 U. S. N. M. 1907, pt. 4, p. 703) remarks, Cabanis and Heine even 

 doubtfully referred the South American specimens, from Guiana and 

 Venezuela, to this form. The type of Laphyctes satrapa is thus among 

 the specimens in the Berlin Museum, presumably the same recorded 

 by Lichtenstein as Tyrannus satrapa in his Nomenclator Avium Musei 

 zoologici Berolinensis, 1854, p. 16, type-locality Mexico. In accord- 

 ance with this view T. m. satrapa (Cabanis and Heine) becomes a 

 synonym of T. ?». covchii Baird. We may add that previous to Ridg- 

 way, Berlepsch (Proc. Intern, orn. congress, 1907, p. 474) had already 

 called attention to the probable identity of the two names. 



The names Mtiscicapa fvrcata Spix and Tyrannus crudelis Swainson, 



