2OO Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. ill, 



cheeks, sides of face, including eye-region and ear-coverts, ash gray, like the 

 lower parts ; lesser, median, and greater wing-coverts black, broadly edged with 

 pure white ; outer web of first primary edged with white ; rest of remiges edged 

 with gray, and the rectrices with deep plumbeous, like the color of the back ; 

 axillaries and inner surface of wings gray, like the flanks. Bill dusky horn- 

 color ; feet lighter. " Iris carmine red " (Wied). 



Length, 6.45 in. ; wing, 2.95 ; tail, 3.12; culmen, .70; tarsus, 1.17; hind 

 toe with claw, .67 ; middle toe with claw, .78. 



Adult Female. "Above pale grayish brown, shoulders, and upper back 

 grayer ; lower back and larger wing-coverts more washed with yellowish brown, 

 the latter edged with a lighter tint of the same ; lower parts pale reddish yellow, 

 darkest on the breast ; under wing-coverts reddish yellow" (Wied, 1. c.). 



Only the male, of the two birds described by Wied, is now in the collection 

 of the American Museum. 



This species has a curious history, and apparently has not been 

 seen by any of the writers who have referred to it, it being thus 

 far known only from Wied's description. While generally synony- 

 mized with what is now known as Hypocnemis myiotherina (Spix), 

 it has no close relationship with it, the resemblance in color being 

 by no means exact. While both are gray birds, with a black 

 throat, the black in the present species is confined within the 

 mandibular rami, while in the other it extends over the cheeks 

 and the whole sides of the face to and including the region sur- 

 rounding the eyes. While H. myiotherina has of course a short 

 tail, the present species is one of the longest tailed forms of the 

 subfamily. As early as 1847 Cabanis (1. c.) started the error of 

 synonymizing the two species ; Burmeister (1. c.), in 1856, strangely 

 confounded the two birds in his description as well as in his text, 

 the result being a hypothetical composite species. 



Mr. Sclater, in 1858 (P. Z. S., 1858, p. 288), placed Wied's 

 Myiothera ardesiaca in his " list of species not recognized," but 

 on p. 251 (1. c.), under Hypocnemis myiotherina, he says : u I do 

 not believe Myiothera ardesiaca of Prince Max. of Neuwied to be 

 the same as this species ; but I have never seen specimens of it. 

 It is referred here by Cabanis and Burmeister." In his late Cata- 

 logue of the Formicariida (Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XV, 1890), 

 it is apparently not mentioned. 



In the absence of proper material for comparison Mr. Ridgway 

 and myself naturally followed previous authors in referring it to 

 Hypocnemis myiotherina. 



