288 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 93 



it antedates texensis in publication. Hellmayr 43 and Zimmer 4i recently 

 have held that this is incorrect, which seems to me to be the case. 

 Zimmer, in support of his reasoning, cites Article 31 of the Inter- 

 national Kules of Zoological Nomenclature, which provides that 

 names based on a mistake in identification are not to be used for the 

 form wrongly identified. It appears to me that Opinion 14 by the 

 Commission also has definite bearing in so far as it deals with the 

 species that it discusses. It is evident that Bonaparte's use of super- 

 ciliosus A\as through error in identification of his specimens and that 

 it was Swainson's name that he used through this error. 



PITANGUS SULPHURATUS GUATIMALENSIS (Lafresnaye) 



Baurophagus Gnatimalensis Lafresnaye, Rev. Mag. Zool., 1852, p. 462 (Guate- 

 mala). 



We secured specimens of this noisy, conspicuous bird at Tres 

 Zapotes on March 24 and 31 and April 7, 1939, and January 20 and 

 25, 1940. Carriker in the latter year obtained examples at Tlacotal- 

 pam on February 5 and May 16 and 17. They ranged in open 

 pastures and fields, though in the heat of the day they often entered 

 the woodland. On March 14 I recorded one displaying with raised 

 crest and quivering wings, and on March 17 one was carrying nest 

 material to a crotch 25 feet from the ground in a tree growing in the 

 open near Laguna del Tular. On April 13 I examined a completed 

 nest at the Arroyo Tepanaguasapan, a large, untidy structure of grass 

 and other plant stems, domed and with a large opening in the side 

 through which I could touch the eggs. It was placed 8 feet from 

 the ground in a little tree growing in the open. 



In identifying these specimens, I have followed van Kossem's 

 recent treatment of this group, 45 though with some misgivings, as to 

 this procedure. Specimens in the National Museum from Panama to 

 Honduras are appreciably darker, except that on the Pacific slope 

 from northwestern Costa Rica to western Nicaragua they are a little 

 grayer. Birds from Mexico north of southern Veracruz and Oaxaca 

 are lighter, with a considerable region between these two areas in 

 which individuals of more or less mixed character occur. In the 

 northern group skins from southern Texas and Nuevo Leon to 

 southern Veracruz have the frontal area more extensively white and 

 are called texanus. Specimens from Zacatecas and interior Jalisco 

 south in the region west of Veracruz to Oaxaca are a little darker 

 above and below and are recognized as derbiarbus. Birds of north- 

 western Mexico from southern Sonora to the coastal area of Nayarit 

 are like derbiaims but average smaller and are called palliatus. 



u Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., zool. ser., vol. 13. 1927, p. 144. 



" Amer. Mus. Nov., No. 963, 1937. pp. 20-21. 



45 Trans. San Diego Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 9, Apr. 30, 1940, pp. 80-84. 



