OETALIS. 283 



plantations and open places in the forest. They do not appear to be very shy birds, 

 for Mr. Richmond ^ says that he fired more than a dozen times into a tree where a flock 

 was feeding without causing them to take flight. Their loud harsh cry, heard most 

 frequently about dusk, is much like that of 0. vetula, and the name " Chachalaca " is 

 applied to both species. 



6. Ortalis strutliopiis. 



Ortalis struthopus, Bangs^ Pr. N. Engl. Zool. Club, ii. p. 61 '. 



Ortalis cinerdceps (nee Grray), Bangs, Auk, 1901, p. 25 '; Grant, Ibis, 1902, p. 245 '. 



0. cinereicijaiti similis, sed, ut videtur, minor : subtus paUidiar ; torque collari olivaceo angnstiore, rostro 

 tenuiore, tarso digitisque brevioribus distinguenda. (Deser. ex scriptis Outram Bangs, Z. c.) 



Rab. PAXAifA, San Miguel I. and Pedro Gonzales I., both in the Pearl Is. {Brown ^ ^). 



The Ortalis of the Pearl Islands has been separated by Mr. Outram Bangs from the 

 mainland species, 0. cinereiceps, not only because of slight differences in plumage, 

 but principally on account of the exceedingly small foot and tarsus. 



We have no specimens of 0. struthopus before us, and are therefore unable to 

 determine the status of the species, but it is possibly one of those slightly different 

 insular forms which often occur. 



Suborder ALECTOROPODES. 



The Turkeys, Partridges, and Quails, which are included in this group, are distin- 

 guished by having the hallux or hind toe raised above the level of the fore toes, with 

 its basal phalanx much shorter than that of the third toe. The inner notch of the 

 sternum extends more than half the length of the entire breast-bone. 



The White-tailed Ptarmigan, Lagopus leucurus, has been recorded by Sumichrast 

 [' La Naturaleza,' v. p. 231 (1881)] from Mexico, on the authority of an example seen 

 by him in 1854 in the National Museum of Mexico, and said to have been obtained on 

 Popocatepetl. Sefior F. Ferrari-Perez informs us, however, that there is no such 

 specimen in the Museum at the present time, nor can he trace it in any of their 

 Catalogues. We therefore hesitate to include the species in our enumeration of the 

 Central-American fauna ; it inhabits the alpine summits of the mountains of North 

 America, ranging from Liard Kiver to New Mexico. 



Fam. MELEAGEID^. 



The Turkeys are exclusively a New World family, confined to Northern and Central 

 America. They are included by Mr. Ogilvie Grant and some other recent authors in 

 the Phasianidae, but it seems to us more natural to treat them as a separate section of 



36* 



