PEIONOENIS.— A8PATHA. 469 



Hab. British Honduras, Belize {Blancanemx "j ; Guatemala ^ ^ ^ {0. S. & F. D. G.), 

 Chixoy Valley near Santa Ana I {0. 8.) ; Honduras, Lake Yojoa {G. C. Taylor ^ « 7^, 

 Segovia river (Townsend ^^) ; Nicaragua, Chontales {Belt^}; Costa Rica, San 

 Carlos {Boucard ^). 



Specimens of this well-marked species have come before us at rare intervals and 

 very fevir in number, though the bird is spread over a wide area in Central America. 



It was first described by Vicomte DuBus from a specimen from Guatemala in the 

 Brussels Museum. A figure of this bird accompanies Mr, Sclater's memoir on 

 Momotidse in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society.' We have seen a few other 

 specimens from Guatemala, but we are not certain of the exact origin of any of these. 

 P. carinatus never came directly under our notice, though Salvin believes he saw a bird 

 of this species when riding in March 1874 near the banks of the Eio Chixoy, not far 

 from Santa Ana and the remarkable gorge called La Campana. 



A specimen was found in one of the collections sent us by Mr. F. Blancaneaux from 

 the neighbourhood of Belize. The late Capt. G. C. Taylor secured one near Lake 

 Yojoa in Honduras, which he shot in dense forest between Taulevi and the lake, when 

 sitting on a low branch of brushwood beneath some lofty mahogany trees ''. 



Mr. Townsend secured two specimens on the Segovia river in June. Belt met with 

 it at Chontales in Nicaragua ; and M. Boucard includes the species in his list of Costa 

 Rica birds, a specimen having been obtained by him at San Carlos in February, and he 

 remarked that the bird was to be seen in the forest in pairs. This last record is the 

 only one we have from Costa Rica, but there seems no reason to doubt the identification ; 

 as both P. platyrhynchus and P. carinatus occur together in Nicaragua, they may also 

 be found in the same locality in Costa Rica. 



ASPATHA. 



Aspatha, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xvii. pp. 313, 331 (1892). 



In several points this genus agrees with Hylomanes rather than with any of the 

 other genera of Momotidse. The bill has a rounded culraen with no concave, depression 

 on either side, but it is not nearly so compressed as in Momotvs, and the serrations of 

 the maxilla and mandible are much more feeble ; the antrorse loral feathers are short, 

 and these feathers, as well as the region round the eye, are buff, though the ear-coverts 

 are black, and there is a black pectoral spot. The tarsi are long in comparison with the 

 wings, and the tail of ten (not twelve) feathers is graduated, the points of the central 

 pair are never trimmed into spatules. Aspatlia is thus intermediate between Hylomanes 

 and Momotus, and for this reason Strickland united all the genera of the family under 

 Momotus. Mr. Sclater, on the other hand, placed A. gularis with Hylomanes. On 

 the whole we think it best to retain Mr. Sharpe's genus Aspatha, but the characters 

 are not very pronounced, and in associating Aspatha with Baryphthengus in the same 



