Messrs. Salvin and Elliot on the Trochilidae. 275 



small wings. We find none of these characters wanting in 

 P. pygmmis before us ; hut the black colouring of the tail-fea- 

 thers, not mentioned by Mr. Gould, we do not find represented 

 in our specimens of P. pygmaus ; and this fact alone induces 

 us to consider it a species. Our comparisons have been 

 made with the type of P. episcopus, kindly lent to us by Mr. 

 Gould. 



Specimens examined : — 



One, Demerara [Gould), type. 



III. The Genus Glaucis. 



With ample materials before us, representing every so- 

 called species of this genus, we are utterly unable to recognize 

 more than one, if we except G. dohrni, of which more anon. 

 The variation in the shape and coloration of the rectrices is 

 very much the same as in the genera Phaethornis and Pyg- 

 mornis, inasmuch as these, with the advancing age of indi- 

 viduals, lose the pointed character of their tips, and become 

 more and more rounded. It would also appear that the 

 subterminal black band becomes narrower, and even evan- 

 escent. Upon these two characters, no less than four species 

 have been founded. The males, upon the the underside, espe- 

 cially the throat, are darker in hue than the females. 



There can be no doubt as to the first name applied to this 

 species being hirsuta of Gmelin, based upon the Brazilian 

 bird. Lesson was the first to divide the species, applying the 

 term mazeppa to the form from Guiana. Mr. Lawrence next 

 distinguished the bird from Ecuador as G. affinis, basing the 

 species upon the sombre colour of the underparts, which we 

 find to be indicative of old males. Then Mr. Gould, in 1860, 

 described the bird from the Rio Negro and Rio Napo (the 

 same country as that of G. affinis) as G. melanura ; and in 

 his ' Monograph ' he gave to specimens from Para (admitted 

 to be immature, which fact is demonstrated in the plate by 

 the light tips of the whole of the wing-feathers, together 

 with the sharply-pointed rectrices) the name of G. lanceolata. 

 We may further add that Mr. Gould, though figuring all the 

 above species, and describing some of them himself, does not 



