o?i the Common Hangnest. 229


consequently the purchaser may be tolerably sure that the

Hangnest he secures has been recently imported. Russ says of

/. vzilgaris " With us it is rare in the trade, and even the largest

dealers only import it occasionally." In the second place, the

tendency of the orange-coloured birds is, to deepen with age,

whether in captivity or freedom : moreover in the genus Icterus

we have species which are constantly of a lemon-yellow colour ;

so that it appears to me probable that the bird so skilfully

figured upon my plate will prove to be a local race of its species,

possibly seen by Peters during some seasonal migration to which

it may be subject : as a mere variety, the utter difference of song

is a great stumbling-block.


If the Ornis of all the West Indian islands to the north of

Colombia and Venezuela had been thoroughly studied, it seems

unlikely that a species of dove commonly imported in the bird

trade from the Island of Tobago, should have been reported as a

native of the Island of Grenada, and regarded as a rarity ; yet

this is what happened in the case of Leptoptila wellsi. It is

even not impossible that the head - quarters of this yellow

Hangnest may be on the same island, and that the two species,

— the dove and the starling, may sometimes be sent home in one

consignment.*


In any case it seems to me that the form illustrated on my

plate has quite as high, if not a higher, claim to be regarded as

subspecifically distinct from I. vulgaris as /. curasoensis has from

I. xanthomus ; in the latter case the paler colouring being the

only character indicated ; for length of bill is merely sexual, un-

less it can be shown that undoubted males of the two forms have

been compared.


Mr. Underwood tells me that one of the larger saffron-

coloured species of Icterus is a common cage-bird in Costa Rica ;

and that, in that country, it becomes paler in captivity : this is

certainly not the case with either I. jamacaii or /. vulgaris when

kept here; indeed, as already stated, the colouring seems to

deepen with age.


* Mr. Gronvold tells me that he has seen three Hang-nests at the Zoological, G-ardens

under the name of I. jamacaii which he believes to belong to the same race of /. vulgari5~sg~~^

my specimen : perhaps they may have come from the same consignment. I have seen one

myself, but it is of the ordinary type.



