Todd: The Birds of the Isle of Pines. 219 



1758. This was based on the figure and description of the "Spur- 

 winged Water-hen " of Edwards, Natural History of Birds, I, 1743, 

 48, pi. 48. Edwards gave the locality for his bird as Carthagena, 

 Colombia, but this was almost certainly an error, inasmuch as there 

 are no unquestioned records for the species from anywhere south of 

 Panama, and so far as known Jacana nigra is the only species of this 

 genus occurring on the north Colombian coast. Parra variabilis 

 of Linnaeus, 1766, has e.xactly the same basis as his earlier name. 

 Parra gymnostoma Wagler {I sis, 1832, 517), and Parra cordifera 

 Lesson {Revue Zoologique, 1842, 135) are both based on the Mexican 

 bird, so that to reassign the type-locality on the basis of either of these 

 authors would necessitate a new name for the Central American form. 

 In order to obviate this, and to disturb the existing nomenclature as 

 little as possible, I propose to fix the type-locality of Fulica spinosa 

 Linnaeus as Panama. This proceeding leaves Wagler's name available 

 for the Mexican form. 



Parra violacea Cory (Bulletin Nuttall Ornithological Club, VI, 

 1881, 130) is the only name so far proposed for the West Indian bird, 

 the type coming from Haiti. The describer failed to compare his 

 bird with continental examples, and neither the description nor the 

 later plate (Cory, Birds of Haiti and San Domingo, 1885, pi. 19) are 

 diagnostic. Indeed, in the latter volume Mr. Cory (page 159) refers 

 his P. violacea to P. gymnostoma as a pure synonym, but later {Auk, 

 V, 1888, 52) he provisionally restores it to the rank of a species, saying 

 that Cuban specimens agree exactly with the Santo Domingo bird, 

 being " considerably larger and brighter than specimens of /. gym- 

 nostoma; the coloration of the wattles is, I believe, also different."" 

 A few months later Mr. Elliot, in reviewing the species of this group 

 {Auk, V, 1888, 299), repudiated the name in question, stating that he 

 could find no differences between specimens of this species from various 

 parts of its range. Unfortunately I have not been able to examine the 

 type (which so far as I know is the only known specimen from Haiti) 

 in this connection, but if the measurements given by Mr. Cory are 

 correct it is evidently a female individual, and somewhat larger than; 

 the average, but equalled in this respect (except for length of tail) 

 by an example from Trinidad, Cuba (No. 57,381, Collection American 

 Museum of Natural History). Three males from this same locality 

 also average larger than specimens of the same sex from western Cuba, 

 the Isle of Pines, and Jamaica, notwithstanding which circumstance 

 I consider them all as belonging to the same form. 



