20 BULLETIN 86, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



" Whippoorwill, Caprimulgus minor Americanus.'''' The South Amer- 

 ican Chordeileu acutipennis was first brought to notice by Buffon,* 

 who gave, under the name " L'Engoulevent acutipemie de la Guyane," 

 a description and a brief note on its habits. Both these species, when 

 subsequently given a binomal name, were referred to the genus 

 Caprimulgus Linnaeus, as was also a third species described later by 

 Spix - as Caprimulgus rupestris. Swainson was the first author to 

 recognize their structural differences from Caprimulgus, and first 

 separated the nighthawks generically as Chordeiles.^ Another spe- 

 cies, described as Chordeiles pusillus,^ has since been made the type of 

 a new genus Nannochordeilcs by Dr. E. Hartert.^ Further species 

 which have been at one time or another by some authors referred to 

 Chordeiles, but which all belong in other genera, are Slphonorhis 

 americanus, Nyctiprogne leucopyga, Nytipolus hhniTidinaceus,^ Luro- 

 calis semitorquatus, Lurocalis nattereri, and Nyctihius leucopterus. 



Nomenclature. — Swainson's name for this generic group, Chor- 

 deiles, first proposed by him in 1832,^ is by several years the earliest 

 appellation, and is of undoubted application, since it is monotypic, 

 and has for its type by original designation " Chordeiles virginianus 

 (Caprimulgus americanus Wils.)," which is, of course, none other 

 than Caprimulgus virginianus Gmelin. A subsequent generic name 

 is Microrhynchus Lesson,® type by monotypy, Caprimulgus exilis 

 Lesson; but besides being 11 years antedated by Chordeiles Swainson 

 is, furthermore, untenable under any circumstances by reason of 

 Microrhynchus Dejean," a genus of Coleoptera, and Microrhynchus 

 Bell,^° a genus of Crustacea. In 1857 Bonaparte, either unaware of 

 Microrhynchus Lesson, or considering it unusable, proposed Ram- 

 phaoratus ^^ in the following fashion : 



9. Ramphaoratus, Bp. 



35. truncatus, Bp. Mus. Br. 



(caberculatus'i Jardin. 



36. exilis, Less. 



pruinosus, Tscliudi). 



From this it is evident that he intended to include two species: 

 the first an undescribed form to be based on specimens in the British 

 Museum, and which he regards as probably or possibly identical with 



1 Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux, orlg. ed., vol. 1779, pp. 547-548. 



2 Avium Spec. Nov. Bras., vol. 2, 1825, p. 2, pi. 2. 

 "Fauna Bor.-Amer., vol. 2, 1831 (1832), p. 496. 



* Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1861, p. 182. 



s Ibis, July, 189G, p. :i74. 



6 See p. 97. 



'Fauna Bor.-Amer., vol. 2, 1831 (1882), p. 496. 



8 L'Eicho du Monde Savant, July 16, 1843, col. 109. 



"Catalogue des Coleopt&res, 1821, p. 98 (Megerlc MS.). 



» Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1835, p. 88. 



"Rivista Contemporanea, vol. 9, February, 1857, p. 215 (p. 9 of reprint). 



