67 



5. Review of the species op the South American Sub- 

 family Tityrin^e. By Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., 

 F.Z.S., F.L.S. etc. 



The birds of the old genus Tityra of Vieillot constitute a very 

 natural and well-defined group peculiar to tropical America, which 

 has been quite rightly, as I think, raised to the rank of a subfamily 

 by Mr. Gray and succeeding writers. They seem to me to form a 

 link between the two great South American families Tyrannidce and 

 Cotingidce — the true Tityrce pointing rather towards the latter of 

 these groups, and the genus Pachyrhynchus to the former. In ana- 

 tomical characters, however, according to Muller, they rather agree 

 with the Fruit-eaters, and for the present therefore, until this part of 

 the subject has been further worked out, I am inclined to think they 

 should be arranged within the confines of the family Cotingidce. 



The great diversity of plumage which occurs in the different sexes 

 and ages of these birds (another character which betrays their Cotin- 

 gine affinities) has occasioned the creation of many nominal species ; 

 and Mr. George Gray, in his ' Genera of Birds,' where merely a list 

 of described species is given without any attempt at reduction of the 

 synonyms, notices no less than forty-six supposed members of the 

 subfamily. Dr. Cabanis, in his ' Ornithologische Notizen ' (Wieg- 

 mann's Arch. f. Nat. 1847), was the first who undertook a critical 

 examination of the subject, the result of which was to reduce the 

 number of species from forty-six to sixteen. "With his views I am 

 disposed for the most part to agree. I should merely observe, that 

 in one or two instances he has united species that have some claim 

 to be considered distinct, and that it is to be lamented that in so dif- 

 ficult a group he did not give scientific distinctive characters for the 

 males and females of every species. 



In the 'Proceedings ' of this Society for 1851 (p. 45 et seq.) are 

 some remarks by Dr. Kaup on the birds of this subfamily, which are 

 worthy of much attention. But of the species considered there as 

 undescribed, one at least has been already previously named, and the 

 others are such as, after examination of the type-specimens, I should 

 hardly be inclined to regard as really new. Prince Bonaparte's 

 arrangement of this group in his ' Conspectus ' is adopted from Ca- 

 banis' article. In what follows I have attempted to make a careful 

 review of the members of the subfamily Tityrinee, giving short de- 

 scriptions of the sexes of each species, when I have been successful 

 in meeting with them, and the most necessary synonyms, particu- 

 larly where my views on this latter point differ from those of Dr. 

 Cabanis. Although no species is inserted of which I have not per- 

 sonally examined specimens, I have the satisfaction of recording the 

 existence of twenty- two species instead of sixteen — the number as- 

 signed in the last general account published ; and I have been very 

 particular about localities, a point much too generally overlooked by 

 writers on ornithology ; so that, although my subject is not quite a 

 new one, I shall hope to have contributed some fresh information 

 upon it. 



