1864.] DR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE GENUS Coccyzus. 119 
6. On roe Spectres or THE AMERICAN Genus Coccyzus. 
By P. L. Scuater, M.A., Pu.D., F.R.S., erc. 
In my ‘ Catalogue of American Birds’ (pp. 322-3) I arranged, for 
convenience’ sake, the species of the genus Coccyzus of Vieillot in my 
collection in two groups according to the colour of their bills, placing 
in one division the species with the base of the lower mandible yel- 
low, as in the well-known C. americanus; in the other those with — 
the whole bill Slack, as in the equally well-known C. erythrophthal- 
mus. In my collection I had at that time three well-distinguished 
species of each of these two groups, namely, 
Rostro partim flayo. Rostro nigro. 
1. C. americanus. 4. C. erythrophthalmus. 
2. C. dominicus. 5. C. melanocoryphus. 
3. C. seniculus. 6. C. pumilus. 
Mr. A. Newton having kindly presented me with a Cuckoo from 
Jamaica, which appears to belong to new species of the yellow-billed 
section, I have lately taken the opportunity of examining again the 
examples of this genus in my own collection and also those in the 
British Museum, and I have drawn up the following notes upon the 
subject. 
Tn the lately published fourth part of the ‘ Museum Heineanum’ of 
MM. Cabanis and Heine, in which this group is treated of (p. 75 
et seq.), all the six species above enumerated are admitted as valid 
under the same names as those I had employed for them, except the 
second, which I had called dominicus. For this Antillean species 
(the C. seniculus of Gosse) MM. Cabanis and Heine propose the 
new name nesiotes, alleging that it is not the true Cuculus dominicus 
of Linné, but that that term (founded upon Brisson’s Cuculus do- 
minicensis*) is nothing more than a synonym of Coceyzus ameri- 
eanus. Upon again considering this matter, and referring to the 
older authorities, I must confess I was probably wrong, in identifying 
the Jamaican Coccyzus seniculus of Gosse with Linnzeus’s C. domi. 
meus. Indeed I had already bestowed on this bird a new name in 
my MSS. and collection, and only subsequently altered it to domi- 
nicus, in order to save giving the bird a fresh appellation, when I 
thought I could make an old one do. I therefore adopt MM. 
Cabanis and Heine’s name nesiotes for this insular species, which 
may be readily distinguished from the true Coccyzus seniculus by its 
smaller size, as observed by Mr. E. C. Taylor (Ibis, 1864, p. 170). 
Again Prof. Baird, in his remarks upon the collection of birds 
made by Mr. Morel in Jamaica (Proc. Acad. Phil. 1864, p. 154), 
applies Brisson’s term dominicus to a species of the yellow-billed 
section, which, although no description is given, I can hardly doubt 
is the same as the new species I now propose to describe ; so that our 
respective attempts to employ old names instead of new ones may, I 
* Orn. iv. p. 110. 
