Todd-Carriker : Birds of Santa Marta Region, Colombia. 335 



Hist., XXIV, 1908, 334 ("Santa Marta"). — Hellmayr, Wytsman's Gen. 



Avium, part 9, 1910, 19 (" Santa Marta," in range). 

 Chiroprion lanceolata Ridgway, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 50, IV, 1907, 737 



(Santa Marta localities and references; crit.). 



Additional records: Fundacion (Carriker). 



Twenty-six specimens : Bonda, Minca, Cacagualito, Mamatoco, and 

 La Tigrera. 



The series includes three young- males in immature (first winter) 

 dress, dated September 15, November 4 and 15. A specimen taken 

 September 7 appears to be moulting into the black and blue plumage. 

 On the other hand, there are two black and blue males dated April 

 29 which are unquestionably immature, as shown by the general dull- 

 ness of their colors and by the greenish wash on the nape, rump, and 

 under surface; they probably represent the first nuptial plumage. 



The range of this bird in Colombia is strictly confined to the Trop- 

 ical Zone of the Caribbean coast, the published records for " Bogota " 

 entirely lacking confirmation. In the Santa Marta region it occurs in 

 the lowlands and lower edge of the foothills up to about 1,000 feet, 

 straggling rarely to 2,000 feet, and with one record (that by Simons) 

 at 2,700 feet. While it is thus found over the whole of the littoral 

 area from Dibulla to Fundacion, as well as in the valley east of the 

 mountains, it seems to be more abundant in the " dry forest " region 

 back of Santa Marta. It keeps to the tangled undergrowth and thick- 

 ets, and is rather noisy, having a peculiar whistling call-note of a 

 bell-like quality. 



Mr. Smith forwarded three nests with eggs (one and two to a set), 

 taken at Bonda on May 16, 18, and 24. Dr. Allen describes them as 

 follows: "The nests in a general way resemble the nest of Manacus, 

 already described, from which they differ in being made of finer mate- 

 rials and in being more compactly built, with the bottom less open, 

 and reinforced with an exterior covering of leaves. They are all at- 

 tached by the rim to the twigs of a horizontally forked branchlet, and 

 are composed of circularly woven plant stems (apparently, in large 

 part, long slender petioles), with an outside covering of small dead 

 leaves, sufficient in one nest to entirely cover the nest externally be- 

 low, and nearly so in another. The rim of the nest is in each case 

 bound to the supporting twigs mainly by a whitish mass of spider web 

 held together apparently by the dried glutinous saliva of the bird, as 

 in Manacus. The outside diameter across the rim is 2^ to 3 inches, 

 23 



