VOl 'lS m ] Correspondence. 481 



the Lafresnaye collection, marked " Synallaxis azarce Lafr. et D'Orb. type."' 

 First of all, this species has never been described by Lafresnaye, but by 

 D'Orbigny (Voyage, Oiseaux, p. 246) who expressly says that he collected 

 only a single specimen of the bird for which the name S. azarce was sug- 

 gested if it should turn out to represent a distinct species. This very 

 example being still in the Paris Museum (cfr. Mem. Soc. Hist. nat. Autun, 

 XIX, p. 70), how can there be three types in the Boston Museum? Further- 

 more, it must be understood that S. frontalis is not known to occur any- 

 where in Bolivia — the specimens from that country, mentioned by Dr. 

 Sclater, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XV, p. 41, belong to S. griseiventris Allen 

 — though the species might yet be discovered in the plains of the East, 

 as it is found in the adjoining Brasilian State of Mattogrosso. The Paris 

 Museum does not possess any specimens from Moxos (one of D'Orbigny 's 

 localities for his 'S. ruficapilla ') , but there are two collected in the Argen- 

 tine province of Corrientes which are, indeed, referable to S. frontalis. 

 It is, therefore, more than probable that the supposed types in the Boston 

 Society's Museum, if at all collected by D.Orbigny, came also from this 

 locality. Unfortunately, Dr. Allen does not inform us where and by 

 whom they were obtained. 



In the same periodical, p. 206, Dr. Allen asserts that Muscicapa olivacea 

 Lafr. et D.Orb. (= Muscicapara boliviana D'Orb.), 1 according to the 

 type (no. 4686 Lafr. coll.), "is certainly the same as the bird commonly 

 recognized as Elainea obscura." In the Paris Museum, there are two 

 well-preserved skins with D'Orbigny's original labels which, in his own 

 handwriting bear the inscription: "No. 158, D'Orbigny, 1834. Yungas. 

 Muscicapa a boliviana D'Orb. — D. 219." These birds have nothing 

 whatever tc do with Elainea obscura, being about half as big, but repre- 

 sent a species of Tyranniscus which, in 1873, was redescribed by Mr. 

 Sclater under the name of T. viridissimus. One of us confronted the types 

 of the two species and found them perfectly alike. The dimensions given 

 by D'Orbigny (Voyage, Ois., p. 328: wing 55; tail 44; total length 128. 

 mm.) alone, are sufficient to prove that his account can only refer to the 

 Tyranniscus. It follows that the specimen of Elainea obscura. in the 

 Boston Museum is quite incorrectly labelled as the type of M. boliviana. 



As a third example may be cited the following. According to Mr. 

 Ridgway (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., X, pp. 494, 495) there are two so-called 

 "types" of Dendrocincla merula "Lafr." in the Lafresnaye collection. 

 One of them proved to belong to the species in question while the other 

 was found to represent a widely different form, viz. Dendrocincla olivacea 

 lafresnayei Ridgw. As a matter of fact, however, neither of them can be 

 the type of D. merula which was described, as long ago as 1820, by Lichten- 



1 As a curiosity it may be mentioned here that these two references occur three 

 times in Vol. XIV of the Cat. Birds Brit. Museum. First in the synonymy of Phyl- 

 lomyias brevirostris (p. 121), secondly as the original descriptions of Tyranniscus 

 bolivianus (p. 134), and thirdly as doubtful synonyms of Elainea obscura (p. 152)!!! 



