BAEYPHTHENGIJS.— EUMOMOTA. 463 



vast region. The specimens obtained were from the woods of Para, at the mouth of 

 the Amazons Valley, a district in which it has not since been met with ; but several 

 recent travellers have found it in the Upper Amazons, so that the range of the species 

 probably embraces the whole of the forest country at the base and lower slopes of the 

 Eastern Andes from Bolivia to Colombia. Crossing the Cordillera of the latter country 

 it occurs in the valley of the Cauca river, where Salmon found it near Remedios and 

 Neche ; in Western Ecuador, at Chimbo, where Stolzmann and Siemiradzki secured 

 specimens ; and near Santa Marta, examples from which locality were described by 

 Mr. Sclater as Momotus semirufus ^^. In Central America it has been traced from 

 Darien and the Isthmus of Panama throughout that State ; it occurs also in Costa Kica 

 and in Nicaragua, where Belt met with it at Chontales, and where Mr. Richardson 

 has since found it. Regarding Momotus semirufus of Sclater, it may be observed that 

 the name was originally given under the impression that Priovites martii of Spix was 

 the same as Momotus flatyrhynchus of Leadbeater. When this error was discovered, 

 M. semirufus was still maintained as distinct from P. martii by Schlegel and others, 

 on the ground of, slight distinctions of colour between the two birds. The series now 

 collected in the British Museum proves, we think, that there is no real difference 

 between the northern and western birds and those from the eastern side of the Andes. 

 All, therefore, should pass under Spix's name. 



Very little is on record concerning the habits of this species. M. Boucard, who 

 found small flocks of it in the forests of San Carlos, in Costa Rica, says it is a very 

 noisy bird, its cry resembling that of Momotus lessoni but louder ^^. Salmon noted the 

 iris as dark, and he found the remains of beetles in the stomachs of those he dissected. 



The central rectrices of certain specimens of this species are often not nibbled so as 

 to leave the spatule at the end ; in others the operation is imperfectly performed. In 

 Spix's type the feathers are entire. The presence of the spatule tail, therefore, is not 

 valid as a generic character. 



EUMOMOTA. 



Eumomoia, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1857, p. 257; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xvii. p. 317. 

 Spathophorus, Cabanis & Heine, Mus. Hein. ii. p. 112 (1859). 



This genus was separated from Momotus by Mr. Sclater in 1857, and a comparison 

 made between it and Prionornis, the other genus of wide-billed Momotidse. It 

 differs from Prionornis in having the culmen of the bill rounded transversely and the 

 sides of the maxilla on either side of the culmen are not hollowed out ; the serrations 

 of the tomia of both maxilla and mandible are much smaller than in Momotus, and 

 extend nearly to the tip; the antrorse loral feathers are much as in Momotus, and do 

 not reach beyond the nostril, which is also like that of Momotus. The characteristic 

 markings of the plumage are not quite like those of any other of the Momotidse ; 



