724 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Like those of the Cotmgichx^ the acUiU males of the Piprida? are, 

 with few exceptions, adorned with beautiful colors, usually with deep 

 black predominating, but effectively contrasted with areas of bright 

 blue, crimson, orange, yellow, or white. The females are mostly plain 

 olive-greenish (paler or more yellowish below). In a few genera (as 

 Laniocera, Scotothorus, and Tyranneutes) the sexes are alike and dull 

 in color. 



The family is peculiar to the continental portions of tropical 

 America (including the islands of Trinidad and Tobago), and is rep- 

 resented by about seventy species, belonging to nineteen genera, 

 the majority of which are confined to South America, where it is 

 represented by about eighty species, belonging to twenty-two genera, 

 of which only six occur north of the Isthmus of Panama. 



KEY TO THE GENERA OF PIPRII),K.a 



a. Second phalanx of outer toe wholly united to middle toe. 



b. Wing less than two and a half times as long as tarsus; adult males with outermost 

 primaries very narrow, bowed, and rigid, and feathers of throat elongated. 



Manacus- (p. 727) 

 bb. Wing at least three and a half times as long as tarsus; outermost primaries 

 broad, or if narrow neither bowed nor rigid; feathers of throat not elongated 

 (except in Corapipo, part). 

 c. Smaller (v.ing less than 90 mm.); plumage without spots. 



d. liasal phalanx of inner toe wholly, or at least for greater part, adherent to 

 middle toe; tail (not including abnormally developed or elongated middle 

 rectrices) much shorter than wing to end of secondaries, or else (genus 

 Masiiis) an erect frontal crest, and adult male black with red crest, pileum, 

 and back. 

 e. Tail less than two-thirds as long as wing. 

 /. Lateral rectrices much more than two-thirds as long as middle pair, or 

 else the latter much longer than the others. 

 g. Mesorhinium normal (short and narrow); adult male not entirely 

 black. 

 h. Secondaries longer, reaching much more than two-thirds the distance 

 from bend of wing to tip of longest primaries; exposed culmen 

 shorter than middle toe without claw. 

 i. Rictal bristles shorter (much shorter than bill); wing less than five 

 times as long as tarsus; adult males brightly colored (with black 

 and lilue, red, orange, yellow, or white). 

 j. Shafts of secondaries abnormally thickened. 



k. Shafts of secondaries in adult male excessively thickened, 

 twisted, and expanded terminally into club-shaped or claw- 

 like form; outermost primaries broad throughout; tail less 

 than one-third as long as wing, emarginate; nostril small, 



a I have not been able to examine specimens of the following genera: Metopothitx 

 Sclater; Sapayoa Hartert (Nov. Zool., x, Apr., 1903, 117), and SchiJ/'ornis Bonaparte. 

 The first of these, according to Count von Berlepsch, does not belong to the Pipridse, 

 l)ut is a member of the Dendrocolaptidae (Furnariidse ?), being not distantly related 

 to the genus Xenerpcstes Berlepsch. (See Ibis, Jan., 1903, 108.) 



