Vol. XXXVI11 



1920 



Todd, The Genus Eupsychortyx . Zli 



Linnaeus in 1766. His name was based primarily upon Brisson's 

 "Caille Hupee du Mexique," the description and plate of which 

 are not quite clear, but apparently indicate the species under 

 consideration rather than E. sonnini. Brisson, it is true, quotes 

 "Guiana and Mexico" as the source of his specimens, which he 

 says had been sent to the museum of the Abbe Aubry. He cites 

 also several previous authors, including Barrere and Hernandez. 

 We have already shown that the Barrere citation belongs to E. 

 sonnini, while it is practically certain that the " Quauhtzonecolin" 

 of the latter author refers to the bird now known as Philortyx 

 fasciatus, as I am informed by Mr. E. W. Nelson. But, as sug- 

 gested by Dr. Hartert, it is quite as likely that the Abbe Aubry's 

 Museum had got its specimens from Curagao as from Guiana, 

 and in any case we are probably justified in accepting Brisson's 

 description as the sole basis of Linnaeus' name, leaving all earlier 

 authors entirely out of consideration. 



Great uncertainty seems to have prevailed for many years with 

 regard to the true habitat of this species. Some authors gave it 

 " Mexico," doubtless on the authority of Hernandez, who is wrong- 

 fully quoted by Brisson and others to this effect, while others 

 more vaguely gave it as " South America." Even as late as 1850, 

 when Gould brought out his great work on the Odontophorinae, he 

 was unable to assign any more definite locality than "Mexico," 

 although it is evident that numerous specimens were then extant. 

 Indeed, it was not until 1892 that von Berlepsch secured an authen- 

 tic specimen from the island of Curagao, in the Dutch West Indies. 

 While clearly distinguishing his specimen from the Guiana form, 

 he suggested that the E. cristatus of Linnaeus (ex Brisson) was 

 probably the same as the latter, and he therefore proposed for 

 the Curasao bird the provisional name of Eupsychortyx gouldi. 

 But I agree with Dr. Hartert, who found the bird on Curacao and 

 Aruba in the summer of 1892, that Linnaeus' name is better applied 

 to the form under consideration. Aside from von Berlepsch's 

 proposed name, the species had already received two other syn- 

 onyms, Ortyx temminkii, proposed by Stephens in 1819, and 

 Ortyx neoxenus, applied by Vigors in 1830 to living examples in 

 the collection of the Zoological Society of London, and which 

 (according to Gould) turned out to be female individuals of the 



