480 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



ary only a little longer than the distance from the latter point to the 

 tip of the longest primary; bill much like that of the foregoing genus, 

 the commissure being only a little more arched, and the gonys still 

 shorter, lower mandible much weaker and narrower; rictal bristles 

 stronger and much longer ; tarsus short, rather shorter than middle toe 

 and claw, less than one-fourth the longest tail-feather, and much 

 shorter than twice the exposed culmen; tail rounded, the feathers grad- 



Platycichla flavipcs. 



ually becor/iing shorter from the middle pair outwards, which is the 

 longest one; the tii-s of the tail-feathers very acuminated, the outer 

 web not conspicuously broader towards the tip; longest tail-feathers 

 never four times the commissure. 



Eemarks. — Tliis genus and its type species have had a somewhat 

 peculiar fate. Although twice mentioned in one of the most admired and 

 admirable works of modern ornithology (Eev. Am. Birds, I, pp. 32 and 

 436), it has been passed by in silence by all authors, and almost forgot- 

 ten, until lately Mr. Sharpe (Cat. Birds, Brit. Mus., YI., p. 379) has 

 reprinted the original definition and description. Even in Sclater and 

 Salvin's Nomendator Avium NcotropicaUum this bird is omitted, and 

 nobody has been able to obtain a second specimen besides the type. 



When examining the specimens of '■'• Turdus'''' flavipes and T. carhona- 

 rius I felt soon convinced that they did not belong to the true Merulea; 

 but that their proper place would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 

 Myadestes, and had just decided to make them types of a new genus, 

 the name of which 1 had already composed, as I was struck by the 

 agreement of their peculiar characters with those of Platycichla. I con- 

 sequently very eagerly compared specimens of the two species men- 



