CATHARUS. T 



i 



Caf.harus. 

 Catliarus melpomene. 



Turdus melpomene, Cab. Mus. Hein. I, 1850, 5 (Xalapa). — Cntharua 

 melpomene, Scl. P. Z. S. 1859, 323.— Ib. Cat. Am. Birds, 1861, 1, 

 No. 1.— Cabams, Jour. 1860, 322.— Salvin, Ibis, 1^60, 29. 



Cathurus aurantiirostris, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1856, 294 (not of Uartlaub). 



Hab. Mexico (Cordova, Orizaba, Oaxaca) ; Quatemala ; Costt^ Rica. 



Specimens vary somewhat in the shade of colorfttion and the in- 

 tensity of the rufescence of tail and wings. The bill is generally 

 (in the dried skin) bright yellow, sometimes orange, a little dusky 

 towards the tip above ; sometimes this latter shade encropches on 

 the culmen ; in one specimen (No, 22,3G2) the whole upper mandible 

 is light brownish, and in No. 2 of Mr. Lawrence's Collection it is 

 nearly as black as in C. occidentalis. Some specimens have a shade 

 of grayish in the feathers of the chin ; but in none is there any in- 

 dication of the yellowish-brown of the jugulura of occidentalis. The 

 legs are always yellowish, though varying in the shade of this color. 

 The rump and tail are always more rufous than tlife back, as in 

 Turdus pallasii and its allies, ihough the contrast is not so striking. 



A specimen (30,484) from Costa Rica, in imperfect plumage, 

 differs in the prevalence of a grayish olive shade in +he back, ai.d a 

 less intense shade of rufous on the rump and tail.* It is not im- 

 probable that this may be the true C. aurantiirostris of Ilartlaub, 

 which is said to differ in the more olive buck. Although Ilartlaub 

 describes the whole upper parts as uniformly olivaceous, including 

 the wings and tail, his figure represents the latter as being more 

 rufous. 



If the species of Hartlaub and Cabanis should hereafter prove to 

 be the same, it is somewhat of a question to which of their names 

 the priority should be assigned. The date of the aurantiirostris 

 is March, 1850, exactly coeval with Bonaparte's "inwiaculatus." 

 The name " melpomene^^ appears on page 5, of sig. 1, of Museum 

 Heineanum, but without any signature date affixed — this practice 

 not having been introduced until the appearance of the fourteenth 

 signature, where the date of Jan, 1851 is printed at the bottom of 

 page 107. There is nothing whatever to show tl/^t even if the first 

 signature was published in 1850, it appeared as e^ as March. 



' Tardus aurantiirostris, Hartlaub, Rev. Zool. March, 1850, 158 (Vene- 

 zuela) ; Ib. Jard. Cent. Orn. 1851, 80, pi. Ixxii. Catharua aurantiiroHris, 

 S( LATKR, P. Z, S. 1859, 323. Catharua immaculatua, Bun. Co^». March, 1850, 

 276 (Caraccas). 



