Mr. 0. Salvin on the Birds of Nicaragua. 311 



XXXVII. — Notes on the Birds of Nicaragua, based upon a 

 Collection made at Chontales by Mr. Thomas Belt. By Osbert 

 Salvin, M.A. &c. 



Though the Coleoptera and Diurnal Lepidoptera of Nicaragua 

 have received considerable attention at the hands of the English 

 residents in the mining-districts of Chontales, birds have as yet 

 been comparatively overlooked, and until now the only bird-skins 

 I have had the opportunity of seeing were sent from there by Mr. E. 

 M. Janson. It was therefore with considerable interest that I 

 examined a collection, comprising 130 skins of 73 species, quite 

 recently made by Mr. Belt, and brought to this country by his 

 wife. 



Our knowledge of the birds of this district is extremely 

 limited, and is contained partly in the scattered notes on De 

 Lattre's collections published by Prince Bonaparte in his " Notes 

 Ornithologiques" and in the * Comptes Rendus' for 1853 (vol. 

 xxxvii. pp. 806-810), partly from M. Sailers exploration, who also 

 visited Nicaragua, but of whose collections I am not aware that 

 any account was ever published. The ' Annals of the Lyceum 

 of New York,' vol. viii. pp. 179-185, also contains a paper by Mr. 

 Lawrence on a collection formed at Greytown, Nicaragua, by 

 Mr. H. E. Holland. In this list 61 species are enumerated. 

 In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1867, pp. 178- 

 180, a list of Birds collected on the Blewfields River by Mr. 

 H. Wickham is given, drawn up by Mr. Sclater and myself, in 

 which mention is made of 39 species. We have also in our 

 cabinet a few skins from a collection made on the shores of 

 the Lake of Nicaragua by the late Mr. Bridges, better known 

 for his explorations in Bolivia and California, who died in the 

 country. A very few additional species were collected by the 

 officers of the 'Sulphur ' during Captain Kellett's voyage. These 

 are recorded as having been obtained at the port of Realejo, on the 

 Pacific coast, where I also secured a few skins in company with 

 Captain Dow during my passage down the coast of Central 

 America in 1863. 



The number of species mentioned in these various papers only 

 amounts to about 150, including the ])rcscnt list compiled from 



