CHERRIE: ORNITHOLOGY OF THE ORINOCO REGION. 313 



region, together with those in the collection of the American Mu- 

 seum, convinces me that there are only two ways in which they can 

 be treated logically. Either all must be lumped together under a 

 single name (possibly P. c. columhiana) ; or, three or four distinct 

 races must be recognized as inhabiting that region. 



I have adopted the latter course — -my conclusions, therefore, being 

 quite at variance with those of the two authors^ who have most 

 recently studied the P. cayana group. 



The native name of the birds of this group is Piscua. They 

 frequent the less heavily wooded districts. 



Birds from the Caura River (American Museum collection), a 

 single example from the San Feliz River near its junction with the 

 Cuchivero River, and British Guiana specimens are readily separable 

 from the middle Orinoco birds by the darker ash grey of the breast 

 and more sooty blackish or greyish of the under tail-coverts. Also 

 the tail-feathers underneath are uniformly blackish with little or no 

 trace of rusty shading, and the subterminal bar practically obsolete. 

 Above, these birds are uniformly darker, more inclined to bay — with 

 less ferruginous. 



PlAVA CAYANA COLUMBIANA (Cabauis). 



Pyrrlwcorax columbianiis Cabanis, Journ. f. Orn. 1862. p. 70 (Car- 

 tagena). 



Piaya cayana guiancnsis Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 97, part. (Points on 

 the Orinoco; Altagracia, Caicara, Ciudad Bolivar); Hellmayr, ib. 

 XIII. 1907. p. 44. (Orinoco points.) 



Piaya cayana cayana Hellmayr, Novit. Zool. XIV. 1907. p. 35 (Ori- 

 noco valley). 

 The birds from the middle Orinoco region — from Ciudad Bolivar 



(where P. c. cayana is also found) up at least as far as the mouth of 



the Meta River — seem to me referable to this race. 



While closely related to typical cayana, they average much 



lighter in color, as pointed out in my remarks under that race ; and 



the rusty shading of the under side of the tail-feathers seems to 



afford a ready means of separating the two races. 



Eye dark lake red, bare skin about eye carmine ; bill citron yellow 



distally shading to an apple green at base ; feet plumbeous. 



^Hellmayr, Novit. Zool. XHI. igo6. pp. 43-4; ib. XIV. 1907. 35. Stone <A Review of the Genus 

 Piaya Lesson>. Proc. Phila. Acad. Sci. LX. 1908 (publisJied January, IQ09). pp. 492-501. 



