512 BUCCONIDiE. 



Bucco dysoni is one of a small group of black and white species of the genus Bucco 

 which extend over most of tropical America, from Southern Brazil to the confines of 

 Mexico, and has the most northern range of them all. It is the only species of the 

 larger members of this section found within our limits. In South America the allied 

 forms are : — B. macrorhynchus of Guiana and the Lower Amazons Valley, in which 

 the white of the forehead is very restricted and does not reach to a line drawn between 

 the eyes ; B. hyperrhynchus of the Amazons Valley generally, in which the white of 

 the forehead is wide and reaches quite to the middle of the crown, the bill in this 

 species being very large ; and B. swainsoni of South Brazil, more readily distinguished 

 by the rufescent tinge of the abdomen. B. dysoni is somewhat intermediate between 

 B. macrorhynchus and B. hyperrhynchus, having a rather Avide frontal white band which 

 is produced over each eye as a superciliary stripe. The name B. dysoni was based 

 upon a specimen in the British Museum obtained by Dyson in Honduras, to which 

 the late G. H. Gray had attached the discoverer's name ^, subsequently adopted by 

 Mr. Sclater ^. Bonaparte's uncharacterized title, Tamatia gigas ^'^, most probably 

 refers to the same bird, as do also Mr Sclater's B. napensis ^^ and B. leucocrissus ^^ — the 

 former based upon a bird from the Napo Valley in Eastern Ecuador, the latter from 

 Eraser's specimens obtained in the same country but on the western side of the Andes. 

 Mr. Sclater now merges all these names under B. dysoni^*', and we think rightly so, 

 though we notice that the Napo birds before us and others from Sarayacu in the same 

 district have very dark flanks, the light cross-bands being not nearly so distinct as in 

 the northern bird. 



The northern limit of the range of B. dysoni is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where 

 Sumichrast noticed it ^ '^^, and it also occurs in the western parts of British Honduras. 

 In Guatemala it is found in the vast forests of northern Vera Paz, where we observed 

 it on more than one occasion, but perched on such lofty trees that we did not succeed 

 in securing a specimen. On the Pacific side of the mountains, however, near Escuintla, 

 Godman shot a pair from a high tree at an elevation of about 3000 feet above the sea. 

 In Nicaragua, Belt met with it at Chontales ^^, and Mr. Richmond on the Rio Escon- 

 dido IS, where he says the specimen he shot was in forest catching insects very like a 

 Tyrannus, but after making a capture flew leisurely to a fresh perch. Mr. Richardson 

 has also sent us several examples from Nicaragua. Erom Costa Rica it has been 

 recorded from several places 9, and throughout the State of Panama it would appear to 

 be not uncommon ^ '^. 



Of the nesting-habits of this species nothing is recorded. In life it is rather an 

 apathetic bird, and from its perch on withered branches of the loftiest forest trees it 

 takes little notice of the hunter far below, and even when shot at merely turns its head 

 to look down for a moment to see what the disturbance was about. Only after several 

 ineffectual shots would it shift its position. 



