37 



March 11, 1856. 



Dr. Gray, F.R.S., in the Chair. 



The foUovving papers were read : — 

 1. Note on Psaltria flaviceps, a thirp American Species 



OF THE PaRINE GeNUS PsALTRIA. 



By Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., F. Z. S. 



In describing a iiew Conirostrum in these ' Proceedings' for lašt 

 year (P. Z. S. 1855, p. 74), and giviug a list of all the species of 

 that form with which I was acquainted, I took the opportunity of 

 noticing some birds which had been referred to the šame genus, 

 which I had not then met with. Among these latter was the Coni- 

 rostrum ornatum of Lawrence, described and figured in the Annals 

 of the Lyceum of Nat, Hist. of Ne\v York for 1 85 1 . It is only lately 

 that I have been successful in meeting with a specimen of this, I 

 believe, rather rare species. As I had always supposed, I find it has 

 nothing to do with the genus Conirostrum, but has been much more 

 nearly rightly placed by Sundevall, who described it as Mgithalus 

 Jiaviceps the year before Mr. Lawrence's name appeared. In my 

 opinion, however, this latter position is not perfectly satisfactory for 

 it. This little bird in fact seems to me to form a very natūrai 

 member of the Parine genus Psaltria, 'of which some Asiatic species, 

 including the type, are figured in the seventh Number of Mr. Gould's 

 great work on the Birds of that continent. 



Mr. Cassin, in a very useful Synopsis of the North-American 

 Parince, given in his excellent volume on the Birds of California, 

 Oregon, &c., p. 20, mentions two North-American species of this 

 genus, Psaltria minima and P. melanotis, but says nothing of the 

 present bird, with which he seems to have been unacquainted. Ex- 

 amples of both the former species are contained in the British Museum, 

 and upon comparison agree in every essential character with this bird. 

 It is true that its yellow face and chestnut bend of the wing are quite 

 different in cast of colouring from what we meet with in the other 

 species of this group, and I have little doubt that some naturalists 

 who are fond of coining new names would consider this fact a sufti- 

 cient excuse for making it the type of a new division. But I do 

 myself think that generic characters ought only to be founded upon 

 differences in structure ; and as in the present instance there appears 

 to be none such, I think we shall be quite accurate in registering the 

 present bird as a third American species of the Asiatico- American 

 genus Psaltria under the title of 



Psaltria flaviceps. 



JEffithalus Jiaviceps, Sund. Ofvers. af Vet. Ac. Forhand. vii. 

 p. 129 note (1850). 



Conirostrum ornatum, Lavvrence, Ann. Lyc. Ne\v York, 1851, 

 p. 113, pi. 5. fig. 1. 



