120 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



ii. p. 17), the Central American form of T. doliatus. In this 

 he is doubtless correct ; but does the supposed new bii*d differ 

 from T. radiatus, Vieillot ? Mr. Sclater has given (Edinb. Phil. 

 Journ., N. S., i. p. 236, and P. Z. S. 1858, p. 218) concise 

 diagnoses whereby T. radiatus may be distinguished from T, do- 

 liatus, referring especially to the black crest, the narrower and 

 better-defined black bands on the breast, and the like. These 

 are points of distinction between T. nigricristatus and T. affinis. 

 The females, too, differ in the same respects from T. doliatus 

 and T. affinis, of which last species surely Mr. Lawrence de- 

 scribes a young male when he refers to the wing-coverts being 

 '' brownish-black, barred and tipped with rufous, and the smaller 

 quills barred and spotted with black," and as having faint indi- 

 cations of narrow bars on the upper plumage (p. 108). We, of 

 course, have not seen Mr. Lawrence's specimens ; but we believe 

 that the adult female T. affinis is destitute of all such marks, 

 and suspect that T. nigricristatus will prove to be identical with 

 T. radiatus. 



The young males of T. radiatus and T. affinis would be diffi- 

 cult to distinguish, and very possibly Messrs. Sclater and Salvin 

 were wrong in referring one of their specimens to the latter ; 

 for Mr. Salvin informs us that the example in question has 

 some white in the crest, though much less than aiiy indivi- 

 dual of T. affinis that he possesses. We are therefore inclined 

 to think that there exists in the Isthmus but one species — 

 namely, T. radiatus, to which we have shown that T. nigricris- 

 tatus must be very closely allied, if at all separable from it, 

 while the first specimens received thence by Mr. Lawrence, 

 and called by him T. doliatus, are, he now says, T. radiatus; 

 and Mr. Salvin confesses that the bird he called T. affinis 

 (P- Z. S. 1864, p. 355) is most likely after all the same species, 

 the range of which on the South American continent is exten- 

 sive, skirting the Andes from Bolivia to Panama. Its presence 

 as sole occupier of the Isthmus, and separating the northern 

 from the southern forms of T. doliatus, is of some significance 

 when considering the barriers to their geographical distribution. 



Geotrygon albiventer is the fourth of Mr. Lawrence's new 

 species. The close proximity of Panama to Chiriqui makes us 



