532 NOTES ON COSTA RICAN BIRDS — CHERRIE. 



Buarremon gutturalis. 



Guatemalan birds, compared with Costa Eican specimens, seem a 

 trifle larger, especially a longer tail, and the yellow of the throat ap- 

 pears to extend farther down on the fore breast. However, the Guate- 

 mala skins are so lengthened in the making up it is difficult to judge. 



Dendrornis nana costaricensis Ridgw. 



An examination of a series of Costa Eican specimens compared with 

 examples from Panama, including the types of «awa, Lawrence (= laiv- 

 rencei Ridgw.), kindly sent me for examination by Professor Allen of 

 the American Museum of N^ew York, are uniformly the larger (espe- 

 cially the bill), and certainly seem to me separable as a distinct race, 

 although Mr. Elliot (The Auk, vii, 1890, pp. 174, 175) contends they 

 are the same, remarking that " the slight difference in size to be noticed 

 in a series of any species of this genus is evidently of no specific value." 

 It may be very true that there is as great individual variation in the 

 different species as between average Costa Eica birds and average 

 Panama birds. But the smallest Costa Eican bird is slightly larger 

 than the Panama birds (I must except a single evidently young bird), 

 while the largest Costa Eica bird has the bill just 0.46 of an inch longer 

 than the largest Panama example. 



As to the distinctness of nana and laivrencei a comparison of the two 

 type specimens shows them to be identical; an opinion in which Mr. 

 Eidgway concurs, thus fuljy agreeing with Mr. Elliot. It should, how- 

 ever, be stated that in Mr. Lawrence's type of natia the tail feathers 

 are not fully grown, being only 3.10 inches long, while m the bird on 

 which Mr. Eidgway based bis laivrencei the tail measured 4.30. There 

 is a similar but lesser difference in the wings, measuring 3.60 and 4. 

 Mr. Eidgway's example is in very perfect plumage, while the other is 

 in a state of change. Mr. Eidgway says he was misled by the original 

 measurements given in the description of nana. He did not have the 

 bird for examination. 



The uniting of nana and laivrencei changes the name of the Costa 

 Eica bird from laivrencei costaricensis to nana costaricensis, as I have 

 written it above. 



The Costa Eican bird appears to reach its maximum development on 

 the west coast. 



Myrnieciza stictoptera Lawr.* 



A single male specimen of this exceedingly rare bird. No. 2335, Museo 

 Nacional de Costa Eica, San Carlos, Costa Eica, December 25, 1888, A. 

 Alfaro, compared with Mr. Lawrence's type. No. 34777, U. S. National 

 Museum, Angostura, Costa Eica, agrees minutely with that bird. It is 

 certainly a very distinct species, differing decidedly from 71/. exsul and 

 its allies in having a concealed white dorsal i)atch, and from M. hrmas- 

 ticta in having the throat unspotted. Yet Mr. Sclater, in Vol. xv, Cata- 



See Aun. Lj-c. N. H. of N. Y., vol. viii, p. i:52. 



