CYANOOOMPSA. 421 



Family FRINGILLID^. 



This family, which is ahnost cosmopolitan in its distribution, 

 was represented in South America by fifty-six genera and one 

 thousand three hundred and twelve species at the time when 

 Brabourne and Chubb, in 1912, published their ' List of the Birds 

 of South America.' Seventeen genera and thirty-three species 

 are known to occur in British Guiana. 



Genus CYANOCOMPSA Cab. 



Oyanocompsa Cabanis, Journ. Ornith. ix. p. 4, Jan. 1861. Type 

 C. parellina (Bonap.). 



Fig. 160. — Oyanocompsa rothscMldi. 



The species on which this genus is founded are peculiar on 

 account of the blue plumage of the male and the coffee-brown colour 

 of the female. The bill is stout and pointed, its width at the back 

 of the nostrils is more than half the length of the exposed culmen, 

 and its depth is greater than its width. The wing is rounded, the 

 third, fourth, and fifth primaries longest, the second slightly 

 longer than the sixth, and the first about equal in length to the 

 eighth. The tail is slightly rounded at the tip and about three- 

 fourths the length of the wing. The tarsus exceeds the length of 

 the exposed culmen by about one-fourth. Coloration : male and 

 female different. 



615. Oyanocompsa rothsohildi. 

 Eothschild's Blue Grosbeak 



Ouiraca cyanea (nee Linn.) Salvin, Ibis, 1885, p. 213 (Bartica Grove 

 Camaousa) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. lii. p. 71, 1888 (Bartica 

 Grove, Camacusa). 



Guiraca rothscliildii Bartlett, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (ser. vi.) 

 vi. p. 168, 1890 (Caramang Eiver). 



