Letters, Extracts, Announcements , ^c. 183 



of Cuvier ; and I should place it under the name of Goniaphea, 

 between Fringilla and Corythus." 



In a footnote Bowditch adds, " The upper mandible closes 

 over the lower, and the middle toe is longer than the others ; 

 the whole bird is black, with the exception of the head, which 

 is azure in G. leucocephala." A woodcut of the bill is given 

 at the end of the work. 



Now it is quite evident that the bird here spoken of is not 

 Hedymeles ludovicianus (a species, moreover, very unlikely to 

 have turned up in Madeira) ; for the description and figure do 

 not in the least agree with it. Further, no such bird as is 

 here described being found in Madeira, we may, I think, 

 consider the name Goniaphea as void for uncertainty. If I 

 were to make a guess as to what bird Bowditch had in view 

 when writing the passage in question, I should say that it 

 might have been one of the African Weaver-birds {Pyre- 

 nestes capitalbus) . It is quite possible that he might have 

 obtained a skin of the latter bird during his mission to 

 Ashantee, and afterwards confounded it with specimens 

 procured in Madeira. 



While, hoAvever, I quite agree with Dr. Coues that Goni- 

 aphea cannot be employed for the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, I 

 do not think it necessary to reject Hedymeles, Cab. (1851), 

 because Sundevall (Kongl. Vet. Ak, Forh. 1846) proposed to 

 apply " Hedymela " to Muscicapa atricapilla, for which it is 

 never used. Our excellent fellow-worker will forgive us, I 

 trust, if we prefer Dr. Cabanis's " Hedymeles " to Dr. Coues's 

 more recentl)^ proposed term " Zamelodia." — P. L. S. 



(Estrelatajamaicensis (Bancroft). — Of this Petrel Mr. D. 

 Morris, of the Botanical Department, Jamaica, writes as fol- 

 lows to ' Nature ' (Dec. 15, 1881, vol. xxv. p. 151) : — " During 

 certain seasons of the year it is remarkable that this sea-bird 

 should be found in holes under trees and in burrows on the 

 Cinchona plantations and in the unfrequented woods of the 

 Blue Mountain range, at elevations from 6000 feet to 7000 

 feet. 



" The natural inference was that the birds make their 



