BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 455 



decidedly longer than head, stout, more or less decurved, terminal 

 portion of maxillary tomium minutely serrate, and color of tail 

 mainly either chestnut glossed with purple, or else (in A. viridis) 

 bright bluish green or steel blue. 



Bill decidedly longer than head, stout, rather broad and depressed 

 basally, faintly to decidedly decurved; culmen rounded but at base 

 contracted into a distinct narrow ridge; terminal portion of maxillary 

 tomium minutely serrate; mandible with a broad lateral median 

 sulcus or groove, which basally involves the greater part of upper 

 half of the ramus. Nasal operculum very narrow anteriorly, nude 

 for anterior and exterior portion, the frontal feathering extending 

 anteriorly much beyond middle of nasal operculum, forming a more 

 or less distinct but sometimes very short and obtuse point or antia 

 on each side of the mesorhinium. Tarsus naked, rather stout; lateral 

 toes nearly equal in length (or the outer one slightly longer), both 

 slightly shorter than middle toe, the hallux shorter than lateral toes; 

 claws relatively small. Wing less than three times as long as exposed 

 culmen, the outermost primary longest. Tail more than half as long 

 as wing, slightly rounded or emarginate, the rectrices broad, firm, 

 rounded, or broadly subangular terminally. 



Coloration. — Above metallic green, bronze-green, bronze or olive 

 glossed with coppery bronze; tail (except middle rectrices) chestnut 

 glossed with metallic violet or purple and margined with blackish, or 

 else dark steel blue, greenish blue, or bluish green; adult males with 

 under j^arts metallic green (with or without black on throat or chest), 

 black medially bordered laterally with greenish blue or (on neck) 

 with metallic violet-red, or else chin and throat greenish golden 

 bronze, breast black; adult females (except of A. mango and A. viridis, 

 in which sexes are alike in color), wholly dull whitish beneath (A. 

 dominicus and A. aurulentus), or with a black, green, or bluish median 

 stripe bordered laterally with a whitish one. 



Range. — wSouthern Mexico to Cayenne, eastern Brazil, Bolivia, and 

 Peru; Greater Antilles (Jamaica, Haiti, Porto Rico, and St. Thomas). 

 (Nine species.) 



KEY TO THE SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES OF ANTHRACOTHORAX. 



a. Tail not steel blue; under parts not uniform green (if green the chest more bluish, 

 in contrast with emerald green of throat and bronze-green of sides), 

 b. Sides of neck metallic reddish purple or purplish red; under parts whollj' black, 

 or else chin and throat (only) dark metallic greenish or bluish. (Jamaica.) 



Anthracothorax mango, both sexes (p. 457). 

 bb. Sides of neck not metallic purple or reddish; under j^arts not wholly black, 

 nor with chin and throat dark metallic greenish or bluish, 

 c. Under parts without white (except femoral tufts). {Adult males.) 

 d. Throat black, at least medially. 



e. Throat and under parts of body broadly (mostly) black. {Anthracothorax 

 nigricollis.) 



