184 DENDEOCOLAPTID^, 



of Poctum, San Geronimo {0. S, & F. D. G.^), Cahabon {F. Sarg ») ; Costa Rica, 

 'S&xBXi]o {Zeledon^^). 



A species sparingly distributed over a wide area extending from Southern Mexico to 

 Costa Eica, and rather variable in the markings of its plumage, which has led to the 

 separation of the Mexican from the Guatemalan bird and the Costa-Eican from both. 



The chief point relied upon is the presence or absence of dark transverse marks on 

 the abdomen, the Mexican birds having, as a rule, these marks more clearly shown than 

 in others from more southern localities. The type from Guatemala is destitute of 

 these marks, but other specimens from the same country have them in varying degrees, 

 and it seems to us impossible from the series before us to separate these birds on so 

 slender and variable a character. Mr. Eidgway, however, strongly insists upon the 

 distinctness of X. sclateri from X. emigrans^ and we can only conclude that the speci- 

 mens seen by him tell him a different story from ours. As for the Costa Eica bird, we 

 can give no independent opinion, as we doubt the origin of a specimen in the British 

 Museum said to be from that country, but which belongs, we think, to one of the 

 South-American forms and not to X. emigrans at all. 



Mr. Eidgway only makes a subspecific form of the Costa Eica bird, and gives as 

 its difference from X. emigrans its slightly larger size and broader streaks on the 

 breast &c. 



X. emigrans is an inhabitant of the pine-districts where it is found. It is a shy bird 

 and difficult of approach. A specimen shot in the Pine-ridge of Poctum flew from tree 

 to tree, and after alighting on the trunk it rapidly ascended to the top, from whence it 

 flew to another tree. The range in altitude of the species extends from about 800 to 

 1200 feet in British Honduras to at least 8000 feet in the mountains of Mexico. 

 Sumichrast speaks of the species as inhabiting the pine-forests of the highlands of 

 Orizaba, where it was not uncommon, taking its food from the bark of the tree-trunks. 

 In the stomach of a bird he shot he found a tree-frog (^Hyla myotympanum), which 

 had probably been captured among the tufts of an u^chmcea (Bromeliacese), to which 

 thesis batrachians resort during the dry season. 



PICOLAPTES. 



Picolaptes, Lesson, Traite d'Om. p. 313 (1831); Scl. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xv. p. 146. 



This genus contains the weaker forms of Dendrocolaptinse allied to Dendromis and 

 XipTwcolaptes. The bill especially is more slender and feeble, as well as more curved than 

 in either of the above-named genera. .In all other points of structure Picolaptes shows no 

 essential difference. In the number of its component species it fully equals Dendromis 

 Mr. Sclater reckoning them at seventeen, and giving the names of two' others unknown 

 to him. These are widely distributed from Central Mexico in the north to Paraguay 

 and South Brazil. Four species, all peculiar to it, are found within our country; of 



