Mr. D. G. Elliot on the Trochilidse. 41 



tions/^ he probably had more than one example before him, and 

 a made-up bird must have been detected, as the tails of the two 

 species in question are too conspicuously different, and the plu- 

 mage of the body also, for any one to be deceived by a manu- 

 factured specimen. There is another reason also against Mr. 

 Gould^s supposition: viz., it is quite evident Lesson did not have 

 the body of T. leucogaster before him ; for in his description 

 he says, " toutes les parties superieures d'un vert dore uni- 

 forme,^' which certainly does not apply to T. leucogaster, which 

 has this portion grass-green instead of golden green. The 

 difficulty, however, is in the bill ; and as Lesson both figures 

 the mandible as white, and emphasizes this by calling the 

 bird albirostris, it would seem to be best to reject his name 

 and adopt that of Mr. Gould, chionopectus ; for of all the 

 species composing the group with the throat and breast white, 

 the present is the only one that has an entirely black bill, 

 and the name albirostris would therefore be in the highest 

 degree inapplicable to it. The species is generally met with 

 in all collections of birds of this family, as it is sent to Europe 

 in considerable numbers, being very common in the localities 

 it frequents. 



I have a specimen of this bird obtained by Mr. Goering, 

 near Merida, Venezuela. 



2. Thaumatias leucogaster. 



Trochilus leucogaster, Gmel. Syst. Nat. tom. i. p. 495. 



Thaumatias leucogaster, Gould, Mon. Ti'och. v. pi. 294; 

 id. Intr. Mon. Troch. 8vo ed. p. 152. 



Agyrtria terpna, Heine, Journ. fiir. Ornith. 1863, p. 184 ? 



Hah, Brazil, Cayenne, Bogota? (Lindig). 



Brisson was apparently the first to give a comprehensive 

 Latin description of this species, under the name of Melli- 

 suga cayennensis ventre albo, which Gmelin supplanted 

 by Trochilus leucogaster {I. c), accepted since his time by 

 ornithologists generally. It is easily recognized among the 

 members of the group in which I have placed it by its steel- 

 black tail, which renders it conspicuously different from all 

 its relatives. It is apparently confined in its range to 



