remarkable Birds from South America. 65 



compressed in the apical half, while younger specimens have 

 the bill much shorter and comparatively thicker or more 

 swollen^ with the culmen more rounded. The latter also 

 have the plumage more or less soiled with brownish, while 

 the adults are of a clearer slate or plumbeous grey above 

 and of a purer ashy beneath; but on the whole the difference 

 is only slight. 



It must be remembered that in all the allied Fringilline 

 forms (sucli as Phrygilus, Spodiornis, and Haplospiza) the 

 females differ widely from the males in their coloration, 

 while in Diuca the difference between the sexes is but slight. 



It cannot be said that the figure in ' The Ibis ' is very 

 correct, the bird there looking not at all like a Ground- 

 Finch, which he really is j but, at all events, this figure 

 aided Mr. Garlepp to find the bird in a totally difterent 

 situation (on the ground), and I think this energetic traveller 

 is much to be congratulated upon the rediscovery of one of 

 the most singular South-American types, as Mr. Sclater has 

 called it. 



I give measurements (p. 64) of the twelve specimens 

 now before me. 



3. Chrysolampis chlorol^mus. 



Lampornis calosoma, Elliot (1872). 



In his Catalogue of the Trochilidae of the British Museum 

 (vol. xvi. p. 96), Mr. Osbert Salvin made a remark that 

 " Graf H. v. Berlepsch has a specimen of this bird (viz. 

 Lampornis calosotna) received direct from Bahia.^^ This is 

 the case, whereas Mr. El^ot, when describing the species, 

 believed it to be from somewhere in the West Indies. 



Perhaps some of my brother ornithologists may take an 

 interest in the story of how I got my bird. Some years ago 

 (in 1888) I was told that a merchant in a village called 

 " Veckerhagen,^^ on the Weser, was anxious to dispose of a 

 small lot of bird-skins which he had received from his son, 

 who then was a clerk in a business at Bahia. I asked him 

 to send me the lot, and found it contained bird-skins of 

 bright colours of the usual Bahia make, viz. trade-skins 



SEK. VII. VOL. IV. y 



