SENNETT ON BIRDS OF THE EIO GRANDE OF TEXAS. 33 



Length 8|; extent 12f ; wing 3|; tail 3f (collector's measurements in the flesh); 

 bill 0.75 ; tarsus 0.85 ; middla toe and claw 0.75. 



This is the bird I called crinitus var. irritabilis in my monograph above cited, where 

 I carefully distinguished it from its allies, and is also the bird distinguished with equal 

 pains and accuracy by Mr. Ridgway, who adopted the same name for it. In choosing 

 this name, I relied upon Bonaparte's reference of Vieillot's Tyr annus irriiaMlis to the 

 Paraguayan bird described by Azara; but it appears from Dr. Sclater's published 

 criticism, and also from a private note which he kindly sent me, that Bonaparte 

 was wrong in this matter, Vieillos's irritabilis being really a synonym of crinitus, as 

 usually cited. The first name which may belong here is the Tyrannula mexicana of 

 Kaup — a perpetual stumbling-block, which has occasioned so much confusion that I 

 will have nothing to do with it. In a word, it is impossible to identify Kaup's bird 

 among the species of so difficult a group as this. It has been successively applied to 

 every one of the Mexican Myiarchi, even to the small M. lawrencii, and by so accom- 

 plished an ornithologist as Dr. Sclater himself. Baird made it out to be the bird we 

 now know as cinerascens Lawr., and his procedure was endorsed for many years by 

 United States' writers. Sclater later, from examination of the tj'pe-specimen, consid- 

 ered Kaup's mexicana ai)plicable to the large-billed form which Baird called cooperi. 

 Mr. Lawrence, in 1869, applied the name mexicana to a Yucatan specimen of the very 

 bird we are now considering, which he afterward, however, renamed yncatanensis, in 

 deference to Dr. Sclater's statement that mexicana was the same as cooperi of Baird. 

 These and other synonymatic points are fully discussed in my monograph. 



Passing over irritaMIis as being a synonym of crinitus'and mexicana as being some- 

 thing past finding out, unless it be var. cooperi, the first unquestionable and only tena- 

 ble name of the present bird appears to be erytJirocercus of Sclater and Salvin, which I 

 accordingly adopt. 



It is somewhat a matter of surprise that this particular variety of Myiarchus should 

 occur in the United States, rather than the large-billed var. cooperi; but there is no 

 reasonable question of the accuracy of my identification, which receives the support of 

 Mr. Ridgway, who examined the bird with me. Var. cooperi seems to be a localized 

 form of Southern and Western Mexico and contiguous portions of Central America. 

 Var. erythrocercus has a very wide range in Central and South America. I have exam- 

 ined undoubted specimens from as far south as Paraguay, and others from Venezuela 

 and Yucatan, whence the types of erythrocercus and yncatanensis were respectively 

 derived, as well as from Costa Rica and Guatemala; but I have never seen a Mexican 

 skin, nor has the species been attributed to Mexico so far as I recollect, unless Kaup's 

 bird belongs here. 



I learn from Mr. Sennett, and from another private source, that Dr. Merrill was 

 really the first to secure this bird within the limits of the United States; but no record 

 to such eifect has appeared to date. — E. C] 



It was shot in open chaparral, and nothing was learned of its habits. 



Iris hazel. 



409—2—8.75x12.75x3.90x3.65. May 9, Hidalgo. 



CONTOPUS viRENS, (L.) Cob.— WoodPewee. 



But a single bird obtained, and no others recognized. It was shot by 

 the roadside, near the camp at Hidalgo. I cannot account for the few 

 small Flycatchers, Vireos, and Warblers seen along the river. 



331— $ —6.50 X 10.00 X 3.10 x 2.50. May 2, Hidalgo. 



Empidonax minimus, Bd. — Least Flycatcher. 

 I saw but this single specimen, which was obtained at Lomita Eanche. 

 Bull. iv. No. 1—3 



