210 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATI02fAL MUSEUM Vor. 87 



another, a male, in dense scrub. These jacamars are more active 

 and alert than I had anticipated, with nothing of the stolidness of the 

 piiflfbirds. I saw them fly quickly and gracefully, even through 

 crowded branches, and when at rest occasionally they twdtch the tail 

 slightly. One called kwee kwee kwee in a somewhat petulant tone. 

 Occasionally I saw them resting as high as 35 feet from the groimd but 

 always in shade. 



At La Providencia near Maracay I noted several and collected one 

 on November 11, and shot another in wet woods near El Sombrero 

 November 20. I saw a pair near Hato Paya on November 21. Many 

 of the country people confused jacamars with hummingbirds, and 

 some of them told me that they were hummers that nested in holes 

 in the ground. 



The bird from El Sombrero, a male, has the green of the chest band 

 partly covered by a suffusion of a metallic-coppeiy shade. The few 

 specimens that I have seen from the northern coastal region of Vene- 

 zuela (Puerto Cabello, Ocumare de la Costa, and San Julidn) have the 

 brown of the under surface faintly paler than in those from inland, 

 in this showing some approach to the paler Galbula ruficauda pallens 

 found on the coast of Colombia and that probably occurs in extreme 

 northwestern Venezuela in the coastal area. 



Berlepsch and Hartert ^® indicate the type locality of ruficauda as 

 "La Guyane, sc. Cayemie," so that Cory ^^ is wrong in citing it as 

 "Colombia." 



Family BUCCONIDAE 



MALACOPTILA MYSTACALIS (Lafresnaye) 



Monasa mystacalis Lafresnaye, Rev. Mag. Zool., 1850, p. 215 (Valparaiso, 

 Santa Marta Mountains, Colombia) .*• 



A female was taken on November 7 at an elevation of 2,600 feet 

 near Ijos Riitos on the northern slope of the Cordillera de la Costa 

 below Rancho Grande, the point being within the cloud forest that 

 covers the upper reaches of those mountains. The bird was found at 

 the edge of a high bank along the auto road where it rested motionless 

 m the woodenlike, dumpy attitude common to all puffbirds. I was 

 much interested in the fresh specimen in the white mustachial streaks 

 as these could be made to stand out in a very prominent marking, 

 which no doubt is used in display. 



Hellmayr and Seilern ^- have listed a specimen from Las Quiguas, 

 near San Esteban, Venezuela, under the name Malacoptila aspersa 

 Sclater, saying that it differs from M. mystacalis of western Colombia 

 in smaller size, weaker bill, less extent of white on the forehead, and 



« Nov. Zool., vol. 9, 1902, p. 103. 



»• Field Mus. Nat. Hist., zool. ser., vol. 13, pt. 2, 1919, p. 383. 



»' Fixed by Chapman, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 36, 1917, p. 342. 



" Arch. Naturg., vol. 78, 1912, pp. 156-157. 



