Todd-Carriker : Birds of Santa Marta Region, Colombia. 235 



Sierra Nevada. It is found only in the heavy forest of the alluvial 

 plain and in the mangroves along the borders of the Cienaga Grande, 

 and has doubtless entered the region from the Magdalena basin. 



179. Veniliornis oleaginus exsul Todd. 



Veniliornis oleaginus exsul Todd, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, XXXIII, 



1920, 74 (Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 6,000 feet; orig. descr. ; type in 



coll. Carnegie Mus.). 



Four specimens-: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (6,000 feet)-, Cerro 

 de Caracas, and Paramo de Mamarongo. 



The series of the several forms of Veniliornis fumigatus examined 

 in this connection sho-ws an astonishing amount of variation in color, 

 -which must be taken into account in any attempt at discriminating the 

 geographical races. There are apparently tvi^o phases, not correlated 

 with sex or season, although possibly age may have something to do 

 with them. One is golden brown, the other is much darker, between 

 raw umber and mummy brown, in the case of V. oleaginus fumigatus. 

 Some individuals in the light phase are almost or quite as bright as 

 duller colored examples of V. oleaginus aureus of western Colombia. 

 Santa Marta specimens are close to fumigaius, but average darker, 

 deeper brownish olive below in the dark phase, and obviously more 

 uniform. The race from the coast region of Venezuela, inadvertently 

 described by the writer {Proceedings Biological Society of Washing- 

 ton, XXIX, 1916, 97) under the name exiguus (long antedated by 

 reichenbachi of Cabanis and Heine), dififers from the Santa Marta 

 bird in having much more white on the remiges, and in being smaller 

 and generally duller. 



The first specimens of this species to be taken in this region were 

 two males, shot on the north slope of the Sierra Nevada back of the 

 San Lorenzo, at about 6,000 feet. Later a male was taken on the 

 Cerro de Caracas, on the slope back of San Miguel, at about 6,000 

 feet, and another at the upper edge of the forest at the foot of the 

 Paramo de Mamarongo, at perhaps 9,000 feet. No others were seen. 

 It is evidently a species characteristic of the Subtropical Zone, and it 

 is very doubtful if it ever goes below 6,000 feet. 



180. Scapaneus melanoleucos malherbii (Gray). 



Campephilus malherbii Salvin and Godman, Ibis, 1879, 205 (Atanquez). — 

 Hargitt, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XVIII, 1890, 472 (Atanquez). — Salvin 

 and Godman, ,Biol. Centr.-Am., Aves, II, 1895, 448 (Atanquez. in range). — 



