182



Revieiv.



One becomes confused when one finds the Rose-breasted

Grosbeak of N. America, which is found in the winter in Columbia

and Ecuador, called Zamelodia ludoviciana ; when one has been

forced— nolens volens —to speak of Hydemeles ludovicianus.


The genus of SporopJvila (lover of seeds) is represented by

forty-two species. Some of these, although very few, have been

kept by members of our Society—the Chestnut-breasted, for ex¬

ample, and the ocellated, or is it lineolated ? And there are nineteen

Siskins, in which list of course is included the now well-known

Hooded (or Red) Siskin ( Chrysomitris cucullcitus), which was suc¬

cessfully bred by Dr. Amsler at Eton. But Spinus is given as the

family name, not Chrysomitris. One will forget one’s own name

next !


Some of our exhibiting members would give much fine gold

for the possession of some of the members of the Dacnis family.

D. cayana is well known as the Blue Sugar bird. I don’t think I

shouid mind Bang’s Scarlet-thighed Honey Creeper (D. fuliginata),

though probably bang' would go saxpence and the rest, before one

got it.


As to Tanagers, their name is legion ; their mere names filling

up twenty-seven pages of this voluminous index. Now that col¬

lectors of living birds are being drawn into the great South American

Continent, we aviculturists may look forward to receiving some of

these rarities. We take off our shoes when we strive to gaze into

the depths of those vast forests, when we mentally wander on the

uplands of those unexplored countries, and see as in a vision the

Silver-banded Motmot swinging his pendulum tail, or hear clairau-

diently the ringing notes of some unnamed denizen of a mountain

gorge. Yet what struggles and trials and privations would have to

be undergone before reaching this fairy land.


I have been told, by one who knows, that the uplands of

British Guiana are a paradise, with air so exhilarating and health¬

giving that one never would wish to retrace one’s steps to that large

sponge which is anchored in the Northern seas, called the British

Isles. That there, in that Guiana, one enjoys all that is desirable

of the tropics and nothing to the contrary, when one can pitch one’s

camp at a height of 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 feet, beside limpid torrents.



