38 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



and thus to give a complete, up-to-date list of the birds of the Santa 

 Marta region. He was greatly handicapped in preparing this paper 

 by the lack of proper material for comparison, entailing unavoidable 

 errors. The paper, moreover, bears internal evidence of undue haste 

 in composition and publication in the form of a number of unfortunate 

 lapses in the scientific names, etc. Three hundred and eighty-eight 

 species are admitted to the list, and the number might have been con- 

 siderably augmented had the early published records by Sclater and 

 others, as well as all the later ones by Simons, been included. Nine 

 forms were described as new. Nevertheless this paper, standing as it 

 does for the first serious attempt to treat the birds of this interesting 

 region from the faunal standpoint, is most valuable and instructive. 

 An analysis shows that twelve species are entered under two different 

 names; as will be indicated in detail beyond, but two of these errors 

 were later corrected by the author. Two species were entirely over- 

 looked, and several others misidentified. The record • for Sporophila 

 plumbea colombiana, quoted from Salvin and Godman, we regard as 

 indeterminable. In a supplementary paper five species were added to 

 the first list. With these corrections made, three hundred and eighty- 

 three becomes the actual total number of species on the Santa Marta 

 list, as the subject was kft by Dr. Allen in 1905. 



Mr. Smith's collection of nests and eggs, or rather that part of it 

 which went to the American Museum of Natural History, was listed 

 and described by Dr. Allen in his supplementary report. Of these he 

 writes : " The labels rarely give anything beyond the date and place of 

 collecting; there is unfortunately nothing to indicate the height above 

 the ground at which the nest was placed, or the kind of tree or shrub in 

 which it was found. The few notes found on the labels have been 

 transcribed and are given in their proper connection, between marks 

 of quotation." The really unfortunate part about this collection, how- 

 ever, would appear to be the unsatisfactory identification. The skins 

 sent as " markers " for the determination of the nests and eggs are in no 

 case the parent birds, but merely specimens supposed by the collector 

 to belong to the same species. The risk of error was thus considerable, 

 as is obvious in the case of Pitangus derbianus rufipennis, the nest 

 and eggs of which were wrongly attributed to Megarynchus pitangua, 

 as pointed out by Mr. George K. Cherrie. An examination of the 

 set of nests and eggs sent to the Carnegie Museum discloses numerous 



