320 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



than half as long as ninth and relatively much narrower. Tail less than 

 two-thirds as long as wing, the outermost pair of rectrices nearly to 

 more than three-fourths as long as middle pair. Tarsus about as long 

 as culmen (from base), also about as long as longest toe with claw. 



Coloration. — ^Back and wing coverts black, usually streaked or 

 otherwise variegated with yellowish or whitish; sides of head black 

 (usually streaked with whitish in females) or (in one species) plain 

 olive; adult males with throat and malar region plain red, orange, 

 orange yellow, or black, the chest plain light yellow or black; adult 

 females with chest spotted with black, or else (together with throat) 

 plain white, passing into yellow on breast. 



Range. — Eastern Panama to eastern Peru, Bolivia, and Cayenne. 

 (About eight species.) 



KEY TO THE SPECIES OP CAPITO."^ 



a. Throat red, orange, yellow, or white; chest orange, yellow, white, or brown. 

 6. Throat not white, 

 c. Forehead (distinctly and abruptly) red, like throat. (Capita rdger.) 

 d. Breast immaculate pale yellow or yellowish white. (Guiana, Surinam, 



and Cayenne) , Capito niger, adult male (extralimital) . b 



dd. Breast heavily spotted with black . . Capito niger, adult female (extralimital) . 



2 In order to facilitate their identification as well as to show their relationships, 

 nearly all the forms of the genus known at the present time are included in the "key."' 

 The C. auratus group is involved in great confusion, and it is very difficult to deter- 

 mine what names certain forms should bear, especially two of the three which occur in 

 the Upper Amazon Valley. One of these seems to be the bird described and figured 

 by Levaillant (Hist. Barbus, pi. 27) as Le Barbu orangi de Phou, and therefore I have 

 adopted the first specific.name based on the same (peruvianus Cuvier). 



Not counting C. aurantiicinctus Dalmas, which I have not seen, nor C. auratus 

 intermedius Berlepsch and Hartert, which is also autoptically unknown to me, there 

 are certainly four clearly defined forms of the group; and since these do not occupy 

 separate areas, or at least overlap in their ranges, they can not be subspecies, nor can 

 C. aurantlicmatiis very well be a subspecies, as claimed by Berlepsch and Hartert, 

 since true C. auratus occxirs in the same district — at least I am not able to distinguish in 

 any way four adult males from the upper Eio Caura, in the collection of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, from examples of C. auratus from Colombia, Peru, and 

 Ecuador. 



With reference to C. aurantiicinctus, which seems to differ from C. aurantiiventris 

 mainly in its orange instead of scarlet throat, see the following: Capito aurantiicinctus 

 Dalmas, Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 1900, 177 (Rio Caura, s. Venezuela); Capito auratus 

 aurantiicinctus Berlepsch and Hartert, Novit. Zool., ix, April, 1902, 99 (Nicare, 

 Venezuela; crit.). 



6 Buxco niger Miiller, Syst. Nat. Suppl., 1776, 89 (based on Le Barbu de Ouayane 

 Daubenton, PI. Enl., pi. 206, fig. 1). — Capito niger Marshall, Mon. Capit., 1871, 157, 

 pi. 63; Shelley, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xix, 1891, 111. — (7) Bucco maculatus MuUer, 

 Syst. Nat. Suppl., 1776, 89 (based on Daubenton, PI. Enl., pi. 206, fig. 2).— Bucco 

 erythrocephalus Boddaert, Tabl. PI. Enl., 1783, 12 (based on PI. Enl., pi. 206, fig. 1).— 

 [Bucco] cayennensis GmeUn, Syst. Nat.,i, pt. i, 1788, 405 (based on Bucco cayennensis 

 BrisBon, Om.,iv,95, Barbu de Cayenne, PL Enl., pi. 206, fig. 1; etc.). — Capito cayen- 

 nensis Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., iv, 1816, 500. — [Buccal cayanensis Latham, 

 Index Om. , i, 1790, 202.— C[apito] rubricollis Vieillot, Enc. M6th. , iii, 1823, 1426 (based 

 on Barbu de Cayenne Brisson, etc.). — M^ncropogonl nsemus Temminck, PI. Col. , iii, Kvr. 

 83, Feb. , 1830, in text to Genua Mycropogon, p. 2 (based on Bucco nssvius Daubenton, 

 PI. Enl., pi. 206, fig. 2; etc.).— C[apito] nsemus Gray, Gen. Birds, ii, 1846, 430. 



