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wings the same colour, but the flights are edged with dark

greenish yellow. The bill, which is surrounded at the base with

stout black bristles, is yellow with a black tip, and a patch of

dull red on each side at the base. Those who are unacquainted

with the bird, but can picture it in their mind from 1113^

description, will see that it is a bird of no ordiuar\ r appearance.

We collected, perhaps, a dozen of them at various localities, and

I have some which are blackish red on the head and collar, but

not having them at hand to refer to, I cannot remember if they

are labelled females or young. They were b}^ no means easy

birds to see in the forests, and we found them always singly or

in pairs.


Of the true South American Barbets we obtained three

kinds from the Western side at about coast level. They were

the Capito bourcieri , C. richardsoni , and the rare C. squamatus;

and from the Napo, on the Eastern side, C. punctatxis was the

only one we met with. The bourcieri is by far the handsomest of

the lot, and is locally called the “Ruisenor,” which is the Spanish

for Nightingale. I cannot imagine why it is so called, for, as far

as I could make out, it has no song whatever, neither does it in

the least resemble our sombre plumaged songster, with its head

and breast of intensely brilliant red, its yellow underparts, bright

green back and wings, and its stout-looking bill. Its wife also

is delicately and peculiarly coloured of a style all her own, and

under ordinal circumstances would be considered a rather

bright coloured bird even for a male. We met with them only

in the forests, and did not find them at all common anywhere.

The richardsoni is a small bird, barely five inches long, and much

resembles the preceding species in its colours, but is a little

more variegated. The sqitamahis is very distinct, being glossy

blue-black and creamy-white, with a yellowish-red forehead.

The only place where we saw these birds was at Santo Domingo

in the dusk of the evening,when Mr. Hamilton saw three together

on a dead tree on the edge of the forest. He killed two of them,

but only recovered one, as it was impossible to find the other

among the vegetation in the growing dusk. The next evening,

about the same time, he chanced to be in the same spot, and again

saw the third bird in the tree where he shot the others the even¬

ing before. This one he secured, and it turned outto be a male ;

this was the only pair we ever came across. They cling to the

tree trunks, and run up them much in the same manner that a

Woodpecker does. The C. punctatus was fairly common about

the headwaters of the Napo, and I think we shot some at all the

places where we stopped to collect on that river. At one of the



