cole: aves from yucatan. 113 



series of fifteen skins, kindly given me by Dr. Gaumer when I had the 

 pleasure of visiting him at Izamal, is included. Most of these, Dr. 

 Gaumer states, were taken at Xbac, his plantation, some distance to the 

 southeast of Izamal ; hut as no localities were given on the labels, it has 

 seemed best to record them in nearly all cases as from " Yucatan," the 

 more so as several of the records would be very unexpected so far from 

 the coast. In this connection it is worth while, however, to call atten- 

 tion to the relatively large list of water birds now known from Chichen. 

 These birds are apparently casual wanderers there, attracted by the 

 water of the cenotes, and undoubtedly with continued observation over 

 a longer period the list would be greatly extended. 



A short additional list has been added, giving a few incidental notes 

 on birds not as yet recorded from Chichen-Itza. 



An attempt was made to obtain, so far as possible, the native Maya 

 names of the birds, and these are given for each species for which they 

 could be learned. 1 In the case of the larger forms there was little 

 difficulty, but as might be expected, the smaller and less conspicuous 

 birds were not so well known, and very often the natives appeared not to 

 have different names for distinguishing them, but applied a common 

 name to the whole lot. 2 



1 For the system of phonetics used in representing the Maya sounds I am 

 indebted to Dr. Alfred M. Tozzer, Instructor in Anthropology in Harvard Univer- 

 sity, who has spent portions of the past four winters among the Maya Indians in a 

 study of their language and customs. The following "key " will aid in giving an 

 idea of the pronunciation of the words. The equivalent letters given by Beltran 

 de Santa Rosa in his Maya grammar are indicated for the purpose of com- 

 parison, since his symbols have usually been employed in part by those who 

 have published Maya names of birds, and are used in the names of many of the 



Yucatan cities. 



Key to the pronunciation of Maya words. 



The vowels and consonants have their continental sounds, with the following 

 exceptions : 



a like u in hut, 3 (Beltran x) like sh in hush. 



ai like i in /sland, tS (Beltran ch) like ch in cAurch, 



k (Beltran c) ordinary palatal k, t§ (Beltran ch) ts explosive, 



q (Beltran h) velar h (explosive), P (Beltran pp) p explosive, 



d (Beltran o) ts, explosive or fortis, t (Beltran th) t explosive, 



o (Beltran tz) ts non explosive, Doubled vowels should be doubled in 



pronunciation. 



2 Some of the Maya dictionaries and vocabularies give the names of a few of 

 the birds, but it is usually difficult, and often impossible, to determine the species 

 meant. Gaumer gave a number of the Maya names in the notes published by 

 Boucard (Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., 1883), and a few are given also by Norman in his 



. vol. l. — No. 5 8 



