2l8 Lucas, Bird Skele/ons from Guadalupe Island. [April 



This species finds its nearest relative in Mlmoclchla ardoscia- 

 cea of Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, holding somewhat the 

 same relation to it, as regards the color of the ventral surface that 

 M. rubripes holds to M. pbimbea. The wing and tail are each 

 fully three-fourths of an inch shorter in J/, verrilloriim than in J/. 

 ardosciacea : the culmen is also shorter; but the tarsi are slightly 

 lon"-er and the wing appreciably more rounded. The white in 

 the tail is much purer, and twice greater in extent, tipping the 

 outer five pairs of feathers instead of being confined to the outer 

 four, as in the other species of the genus, and occupying consid- 

 erably more than the apical half of the outer feather. 



This is evidently the bird mentioned by Mr. Ober as "de- 

 scribed [to him] by several persons, something like a Thrush, 

 but with yellow bill and legs," and enumerated by Mr. Law- 

 rence* a-s "5. 'Thrush'?" According to the Messrs. Verrill, the 

 bird is well known to the natives of the island, who call it Pcrro 

 vantcr\ they, however, esteem it very rare and extremely ditti- 

 cult to get. 



SOME BIRD SKELETONS FROM GUADALUPE 

 ISLAND. t 



BY FREDERIC A. lAICAS. 



By the kindness of Dr. C. Hart Merriam I some time ago came 

 into the possession of several bird skeletons collected at Guada- 

 lupe Island, oft' the coast of Lower California, by Mr. Walter E. 

 IBryant. Guadalupe Island is of peculiar interest from the fact 

 that it seems to have been sepai-ated from the mainland only long 

 enough for its fauna to have taken the first steps toward difteren- 

 tiation, the number of peculiar species being very small, and the 

 number even of sub-species limited. In this respect Guadalupe 

 difters vastly from the Galapagos Islands, where specific difter- 

 entiation has proceeeded so far that each island has its own char- 



* Catalogue of the Birds of Dominica from Collections made for the Smithsonian 

 Institution by Frederic A. Ober, together with his Notes and Observations. By 

 Oeorge N. Lawrence. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., I, 1878, pp. 48-69. 



tRead at the Washington meeting of the A. O. U,, Nov., 1890. 



