166 Mr. H. Durnford on the Birds of 



XVI. — Notes on the Birds of the Province of Buenos Ay res. 

 By Henry Durnford. 



(Plate III.) 



Before commencing these notes, I feel that some apology is 

 due to the readers of ' The Ibis ' for several mistakes which 

 appeared in my last communication on the birds of this dis- 

 trict (Ibis, 1876, p. 157 et seqq.), and which I will endeavour 

 to correct in the course of the following remarks. In justice 

 to myself I must add that the above-mentioned communica- 

 tion was not written with a view to its being published in 

 ' The Ibis / for a short residence in a new country had not 

 enabled me to speak so confidently as I should have liked. 



Baradero, which I shall have occasion to mention frequently, 

 is a small town about fifty-three miles further north than the 

 city of Buenos Ayres, from which it is distant nearly ninety 

 miles in a straight line in a W.N.W. direction. It is situ- 

 ated on an arm, or " riacho,^' of the Parana ; but as this arm 

 joins the main river at both ends, it is in reality a portion of 

 the Parana itself. 



[Mr. Durnford^s nomenclature has been slightly altered to 

 correspond with that of our 'Nomenclator Avium Neotro- 

 picalium.^ The best general account of the ornithology of 

 La Plata is that given in the second volume of Burmeister's 

 'Reise in die La Plata-Staaten^ (2 vols, Halle, 1851). In 

 the P. Z. S. 1868, p. 138, and 1869, pp. 157, 631, will be 

 found three articles on Mr. Hudson's valuable collections 

 made near Buenos Ayres, to which references are given below. 

 A new revision of the birds of La Plata, with such short cha- 

 racters added as would enable observers in that country to 

 determine the species, would be a very valuable contribution 

 to our science. — Edd.] 



1. TuRDUs LEucoMELAS (Vicill.) ; Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S. 1868, 

 p. 138. 



Resident. In the winter to a certain extent gregarious, and 

 common always in the belt of trees and scrub which fringe 

 the shore of the La Plata, preferring low land to a more ele- 

 vated district. There is a fact about the note of this bird 



