1861.] DR. p. L. SCLATER ON BIRDS FROM JAMAICA. ()9 



range appears to be very extensive. I have received specimens from 

 many localities in South America, and have compared them witli 

 others from Central America, and with the types of iV. brasiliensis 

 in the Paris Museum, and, again, with specimens of Molossus fuUgi- 

 tiosus from Charleston, South Carolina, whence they had been sent 

 by Dr. Bachman ; and I find them to be all of one species. 



This has been supposed by Major Le Conte and others to be the 

 Rhinopoma carolinensis of M. Geoifroy ; but, having examined the 

 type of this species in the Paris Museum, I am enabled to state that 

 such is not the case. Hhe Rhinopoma carolinensis is ?l sm&W Mo- 

 lossus from West Africa and Bourbon (M. acetahulosus-=M. nata- 

 lensis, Smith) ; and the Fespertilio borbonicus, in the same col- 

 lection, is a yellowish specimen of the Fespertilio (Lasiurus) nove- 

 boracensis of the United States ! An exchange of labels would ren- 

 der these species intelligible. 



4. List of a Collection of Birds made by the late Mr. 

 W. OsBURN IN Jamaica, with Notes. By P. L. Sclater, 

 M.A., Ph.D., Secretary to the Society. 



(Plate XIV.) 



On the departure of Mr. Osburn, the brother of the late Mr. W. 

 Osburn, to America last year, I was entrusted with the care of the 

 collections of Natural History formed by the latter gentleman in 

 Jamaica, and leave was given me to examine their contents. Being 

 now engaged in preparing a Report on the present state of our know- 

 ledge of West Indian Vertebrates for the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, I have not thought it right in the interests 

 of science, and in vindication of the discoveries made by the late Mr. 

 W. Osburn, to defer the examination of them any longer. 



I have accordingly prepared the following list of the species of 

 birds obtained by Mr. Osburn during his sojourn in Jamaica ; and 

 Mr. R. F. Tomes, at my request, has kindly undertaken the task 

 of determining the Mammals, and has given the results of his inves- 

 tigations in the paper just read to the meeting. 



Mr. W. Osburn, whose untimely death we must all deplore as that 

 of an energetic scientific explorer and most intelligent writer on Na- 

 tural History, commenced his residence in Jamaica in the beginning 

 of 1858, and stayed there, I believe, until the period of his decease 

 in the spring of 1860. A series of very interesting letters relating 

 to the natural objects observed in that island will be found in ' The 

 Zoologist' for 1859 and 1860, having been communicated to that 

 periodical by Mr. P. H. Gosse, to whom they were addressed. 



The most interesting and the only species which appears to be en- 

 tirely new in Mr. Osburn's collection is a little bird belonging to the 

 American group of Greenlets {Vireonidce) , clearly intermediate in 

 characters between J'^ireo and Vireolanius, possessing the bill of the 

 latter and the plumage and general structure of the former. This 



