( 239 ) 



The concealed basal portions of the rectrices are pale green, the anal region 

 and under tail-coverts bright buff , as in adult specimens from Barracas al Sud 

 (Buenos Aires), while the newly-grown lesser wing-coverts show exactly the same 

 yellowish green tinge. 



In other respects the type fairly agrees with Dr. Sharpe's * description of the 

 young of E. platensis. The top of the head aad back are buffy brown, broadly striped 

 with blackish brown ; the median and greater wing-coverts dusky, with whity- 

 brown edges ; the outer margins to the remiges duller green than in the adult ; the 

 under surface is whitish (instead of olive-grey), with distinct reddish brown shaft- 

 streaks on foreneck, breast, and flanks. Perfectly adult birds of E. platensis have 

 no traces of dusky markings underneath, but in immature examples there are 

 sometimes dark brown streaks on the foreneck to be seen. 



The upper mandible, in the type specimen, is blackish brown, the cutting-edges 

 yellowish brown, the lower mandible whitish. 



Emberizoides megarhyncha Bp. is, thus, to be added to the synonyms of 

 E. platensis. Dr. Sharpe * had doubtfully referred the name to Emberizoides 

 herbicola (Vieill.). 



56. On Empidochanes poecilocercus Pelz. and Knipolegus pusillus 



Scl. & Salv. 



In the second part of his well-known Zur Ornithologie Brasiliens the late 

 August von Pelzeln described as a new species Empidochanes poecilocercus from a 

 single female example, obtained by the celebrated traveller J. Natterer on the 

 Arnajau, one of the tributaries of the Rio Negro. The species was not mentioned 

 again in ornithological literature until Berlepsch and Hellmayr,j- from an examina- 

 tion of the type specimen, declared it to represent a very distinct form not to be 

 confounded with any other member of the genus Empidochanes. Two years 

 afterwards I recorded a second example, also a female, from Itaitiiba, a small 

 village on the left bank of the Tapajoz River. % So far as I know, no other 

 specimens have been obtained since. 



In 1873 Messrs. Sclater and Salvin published the description of a new 

 Tyrant, Knipolegus pusillus. The type, which had been procured by A. R. Wallace 

 somewhere on the Lower Amazons, || remained unique till 1898, when G. K. Cherrie 

 was fortunate in getting two males at Perico, on the upper Orinoco, Venezuela.lf 

 In 1907 Miss Snethlage** shot a single male near Alcobaca, on the Tocantins, and 

 in the same year the late W. Hoffmanns senfe an adult male from Jamarysinho, a 

 village on the Rio Machados, Madeira district, to the Tring Museum.ft 



Thus, it will be seen that the two known specimens of E. poecilocercus were 

 females, while of Knipolegus pusillus only males had been secured. When lately 

 investigating the affinities of Pelzeln's species I was struck: by its similarity to the 

 females of certain species of Knipolegus, both in structure and in style of coloration. 



* Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xii. 1888. p. 769. 



f Journ.f. Ornith. 53. 1905. p. 27. 



j Nov. Zool. xiv. 1907. p. 12. 



Nomenclator Avium Neotrop. p. 158. 



|| Owing to loss of the original label the exact locality could not be ascertained. 



1 Berlepsch and Hartert, Nov. Zool.ix. 1902. p. 36.' 

 ** Journ.f. OrnitU. 56. 1908. p. 525. 

 ft Hellmayr, Nov. Zool. xvii. 1910. p. 284. 



