Aug., 1S45] 263 



Meeting for Business, *Aug. 26, 1S45. 

 Vice President Morton in the Chair. 

 The Committee to whom was referred the following paper, 

 read at last meeting, reported in favour of publication. 



Descriptions of new and little known Birds, collected in Upper California.^ 



By William Gambel. 



Family LEPTOSTOMID^E. 



Bill longer than the head, straight except towards the tip; wings short, 

 rounded ; tail long, cuneated ; feet with two toes before and two behind ; tarsus 

 long and stout. 



Genus Leptostoma, Swains. 



Bill long, stout, entire; straight, except at tip which is hooked ; triangular at 

 base, compressed towards the tip. Nostrils lateral, naked, oblong. A wide 

 bare space extending from the eye to the nape. Wings very short, rounded. 

 Tail very long, cuneated. Feathers around the base of the bill rigid, the shafts 

 elongated into black setaceous hairs ; the upper eyelid also with a row of very 

 rigid hairs. Feathers of the body very long and woolly ; those of the breast, 

 shoulders, wings and tail beautifully variegated, and with long ciliated edging. 

 Tarsus very long and stout, crested. 



Leptostoma longicauda, Swainson, 1824, in catalogue of birds of Mexican 

 Museum, and in description of the genus in Natural History of Birds, vol. 2, 

 p. 325. Savrotrkra californica? Lesson ; S. Bottse? Blainville. Geococcyx 

 vialicus ? Wagler, Lichtenstein. 



Male. — Variegated ; feathers of the back part of the head erectile into a crest 

 one and a quarter inches in height, which is steel blue with purplish reflections. 

 Upper part of back and wings, upper tail coverts and two middle tail feathers, 

 brownish green with bronze reflections, those of the former with steel-blue, 

 ochraceous, and white ciliated edgings ; those of the latter principally with 

 white. Front of the head, sides of neck and breast, with the centres of the 

 feathers still blue, broadly margined with ochraceous and white. Tail cuneated, 

 of ten feathers, and nearly twelve inches in length, the two outer ones about 

 three inches shorter than the two middle ones, and all except these latter bluish- 

 green, narrowly edged and tipped with white. Body covered with very long 

 silky or woolly feathers ; above of a blackish gray colour, below of a grayish 

 white, with a tinge of yellowish-brown, particularly about the thighs and vent. 

 A bare space extending from the eye to the back of the head on each side, 

 where it opens out into a round patch of a Vermillion colour. Wings very 

 much rounded, first quill two-thirds the length of the fourth to the tenth, which 

 are nearly equal, the rest of the secondaries scarcely shorter. Primaries and 



tA former paper containing descriplions of some new Californian birds, was pub- 

 lished during my absence, in the Proceedings of this Society for March and April, 1843 . 



