78 



BULLETIN 117, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



not always been available, and the same species has therefore received 

 different names in various parts of its range. Misidentifications have 

 been frequent, and no one appears to have had the material for a 

 revision of the group. As a result, existing descriptions are contra- 

 dictory, and in short the group is badly in need of revision. Some 

 years ago, having access to the Lafresnaye types and possessing a 

 large number of Colombian specimens, I attempted to treat ^^ (of 

 the northern members of the genus, but lack of authentic Peruvian 

 specimens prevented the satisfactory identification of all my material 

 and with specimens from Peru now before me this want is felt even 

 more strongly. Examination of the descriptions of von Tschudi, 

 Taczanowski, von Berlepsch, and others reveals confusing contradic- 

 tions, and I find myself quite unable to reach satisfactory conclusions 

 regarding the identity of two of our three species of this genus. The 

 two birds here referred to 5'. acutirostris, do not agree with von 

 Tschudi's description of that species, but do agree with a description 

 by Taczanowski of a " Oiseau typique de Tschudi." '^ They are dark 

 slate color, with the posterior parts of the body cinnamon-brown 

 barred both above and below with blackish; the tail, which appears 

 to afford one of the most diagnostic characters in the birds of this 

 genus, is slate-gray in the male and tinged with brownish in the 

 female, but xvitliout lars in either. The birds measure: Male, wing, 

 60; tail, 44; tarsus, 23.5; culmen, 12 mm. Female, wing, 58; tail, 39; 

 tarsus, 24; culmen, 11. 

 Occobamba Valley (9,100 feet), 1 male, 1 female. 



SCYTALOPUS, species. 



Two specimens from Cedrobamba, in the humid Temperate Zone, 

 and one from Limbani, in southeastern Peru, agree in general color 

 and pattern with the birds above recorded, but are paler with a sil- 

 very sheen on the plumage of the anterior parts of the body, a faint 

 suggestion of a gray postocular stripe, a brownish tail with the cen- 

 tral feathers indistinctly harred with hlack. Were it not for the lat- 

 ter character, they might be referable to 8. simonsi, which is de- 

 scribed as similar to S. silvestris but lacking the white patch on the 

 abdomen, and having a whitish eyebrow. Taczanowski, however, 

 describes the adult of sylvestns (and my specimens are adult) as hav- 

 ing the tail ''brune noiratre." My specimens measure: 



•» The Auk, vol. 32, 1915, pp. 406-423. 



« Orn. du Perou, vol. 1, p. 533. 



