Todd : A Revision of nit. Genus Chjemepelia. 521 



these parts being colored much like the upper surface, while the throat, 



abdomen, ami under tail-coverts generally have more while. 



History. — This species came under the notice of naturalists very 



early, being first mentioned, 5 so far as [ am able to discover, by 

 du Tertre in 1654, under the name "Ortolan." This was with 

 reference to the bird of Martinique, and practically all of the earliest 

 notices we have pertain to various other West Indian localities. 

 It was reported by Catesby from South Carolina in 1731, and by 

 Bancroft from Guiana in 1769. Linnaeus, in describing the species 

 under the name Cohimba passer iua in 1758, based his account on 

 Sloane, Catesby, Ray, Willughby, and Marcgrave. The "Picui- 

 pinima" of the latter author, however, is clearly a Scardafella, and 

 as the Ray references (with one exception) are also based exclusively 

 on Marcgrave's bird Linnanis' species must be taken from Sloane, 

 Catesby, and Willughby, the respective localities represented being 

 Jamaica, South Carolina, and Barbados. As will be shown beyond, 

 South Carolina must be taken as the type locality. Linnaeus merely 

 gives "America inter tropicos." 



The species figures extensively in the ornithological literature of 

 the next hundred years, being noticed by almost every author and 

 compiler w T ho had occasion to deal with the neotropical avifauna. 

 Spix described the form from Brazil in 1825 under the name Columbina 

 griseola, not identifying it with the Linnaean species, and his specific 

 name is the earliest proposed for any of the races (excepting, of 

 course, true passerina). Not until 1S54, with the publication of 

 Bonaparte's Conspectus Avium, was it recognized that the species 

 was an aggregation of geographical races, but as trinomials were 

 then not in vogue, Bonaparte described three additional forms as 

 full species, pointing out their distinctive characters. Since Bona- 

 parte wrote his review of this genus, and more especially since tri- 

 nomials have come into common use, one form after another has 

 been described, until no less than twenty-two names are now on the 

 list of claimants for recognition as subspecies. Some of these are 

 nomina nuda, others are indeterminable, and still others are ac- 

 companied by descriptions which make comparisons of the new 

 forms with others to which they are not at all closely related — a most 

 misleading feature, naturally productive of much misapprehension 

 and confusion. Again, some type specimens are actually not typical, 

 being extremes, intergrades, or immature birds of the forms to which 



6 [See page 520.! 



