Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 139 



and I hope that Mr. Sclater will not persist in his determina- 

 tion to reject the Linnean term " chavaria." I think 

 that Linne's names ought to be supported with all our 

 power, especially if they are as certain as the one to which 

 1 now refer. 



Yours &c., 



T. Salvadori. 



Turin, Zoological Museum, 

 November 13tb, 1896. 



Sirs, — Mr. Lodge's interesting notes on the habits of 

 some West-Indian Humming-birds, published in your last 

 number (Ibis, 1896, pp. 495-519), call for a few remarks on 

 the names of some of the species he mentions and their 

 distribution. He seems to have examined the series of skins 

 in the British Museum, but not to have consulted the Cata- 

 logue referring to them (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. xvi.). 

 Had he done so a few slight errors might have been avoided. 



The close relationship of the various forms of Bellona has 

 long puzzled writers on these birds, in consequence, no doubt, 

 of the very vague and often inaccurate localities ascribed to 

 the specimens examined. The true state of the case is set forth 

 in the Catalogue referred to, and it seems pretty well estab- 

 lished that the commonest and most widely diffused form — 

 B. exllis — is found in every island from the Virgin Islands, 

 and perhaps Puerto Rico, to Santa Lucia, little variation 

 existing between birds from any of these islands. In 

 Barbados, the Grenadines, and Grenada, B. cristata alone 

 occurs, and in St. Vincent an intermediate form, which 

 Gould described as B. ornata. It is true that Gould did not 

 know the origin of his types, but the domicile of this 

 particular form has been clearly established by Ober and 

 Herbert Smith. As Mr. Lodge did not visit St. Vincent he 

 did not himself meet with the true B. ornata. 



When in Barbados, he says (p. 505), he saw birds which he 

 supposed to be either B. cristata or B. exilis. They must 

 assuredly have been the former, which is the only form 

 known to occur in that island. 



