THE IBIS. 



No. I. JANUARY 1859. 



I. — On the Ornithology of Central America. Part I. By Philip 



LUTLEY SCLATER and OSBERT SaLVIN. 



Although the birds of Central America are tolerably well 

 known to us from the numerous travellers and collectors who 

 have explored different parts of its shores, and supplied the 

 museums of Europe with specimens, no writer has as yet at- 

 tempted anything like a general account of the ornithology of 

 this remarkable country, where winter visitants from the northern 

 portion of the New World mix with others of peculiar foi*m and 

 splendid plumage, which recall to one's memory the most brilliant 

 ornaments of the tropical bird-faunas of Brazil and Cayenne. 

 A considerable number of specimens having been lately trans- 

 mitted to England from Guatemala — perhaps the most attract- 

 ive part of the great Central-American isthmus, — and one of 

 the writers of the present article having himself passed some 

 months in that country, and collected specimens and made 

 notes upon its birds, it has been thought that the opportunity 

 should not be lost of attempting a sketch of the ornithology of 

 this region, in order to form a foundation upon which a more 

 complete work may hereafter be established. It is proposed, 

 therefore, in the present paper, to give a list, with incidental 

 remarks, of all the species of birds which are certainly known to 

 inhabit Central America, from the confines of Mexico to where 

 the Isthmus again contracts in the republic of Honduras, and 

 the route of the proposed Honduras Interoceanic Railway gives 

 a convenient southern boundary. 



VOL. I. B 



