200 BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM. SCIENCE BULLETIN 2. 6. 



The adult or nuptial plumage seems to be acquired by a com- 

 plete prenuptial moult and my observations indicate that breeding 

 does not begin until the adult plumage has been acquired. 



Saltator olivascens Cabanis. 

 Saltator olivascens Cab., in Schomb. Reise Brit. Guiana III. 1848. p. 676; 



Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 23. 



Common throughout the delta region and along the middle 

 stretches of the river as far up as the mouth of the Meta River. 



Colors of fresh birds are : eye, seal brown ; bill, blackish ; feet, smoke 

 grey. 



Nesting begins in April as indicated by a female taken at Ciudad 

 Bolivar April 15th that had an egg in the oviduct. Immature birds 

 resemble the adults but are washed all over with bright olive green. 



Saltator maximus ('Miiller). 

 Tanagra maxima Miiller, Natursyst. Suppl. 1776. p. 159. 

 Saltator magniis Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 23, not Gmelin ; et auctorum. 

 This species of Saltator was observed on the upper Orinoco only. 

 S. olivascens and 5*. orenoccnsis taking its place on the middle and lower 

 ■stretches of the river. Andre and Klages sent specimens from Suapure 

 and La Pricion on the Caura River to the Tring Museum. 



Saltator orenocensis Lafresnaye. 

 Saltator orenocensis Lafr., Rev. Zool. 1846. p. 274; Berlepsch & Hartert, 



p. 23, Pi: XII, fig. 3- 



Common at all points along the Orinoco from the delta region 

 (Las Barrancas) to Urbana or about the mouth of the Apure River. 



An adult male had the eye sepia brown ; bill, blackish slate above, 

 plumbeous below; feet, slaty. The colors of an adult female were: 

 eye pinkish cream color; bill greenish drab with a dusky line along 

 ridge of culmen ; feet pinkish ; flesh white. 



On May 10, 1898, I took a nest of this species containing one 

 nearly fully fledged young and one addled egg. The nest was placed 

 among the tops of a thick clump of canes, about 2.13 m. above the 

 ground. It is a large loose structure of broad grasses, sedge and 

 twdgs without a particularly soft lining. The single egg reminds one 

 of a large Carpodaciis egg, being light greenish blue, with a few minute 

 purplish black spots near the thick end. It measures 24 x 17.5 mm.^ 



'Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 24. 



