286 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



This species, with its broad, rounded, terminally expanded rectrices, 

 of soft, closely webbed feathers, certainly cannot belong in Synallaxis. 

 In the paper just cited the writer has accordingly proposed to make it 

 the type of a new genus, Poecilurus.^^ 



A Tropical Zone species, with a very restricted local distribution. 

 It was taken by the writer only in the waste land and weed-grown pas- 

 tures along the Fundacion River below the village of that name, and 

 was not common even there. It is wont to keep close to the ground in 

 the clumps of shrubbery and weeds, seldom coming out into the open. 



237. Poecilurus candei venezuelensis (Cory). 



Synallaxis candei (not of Lafresnaye and D'Orbigny) Sclater, Proc. Z06I. 

 Soc. London, 1859, 194 (Rio Hacha) ; 1871, 85 (Rio Hacha) ; 1874, 15 

 (Rio Hacha). — Salvin and Godman, Ibis, 1880, 170, part (Valencia). — 

 Sclater, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XV, 1890, 54 (Valencia). — Allen, Bull. 

 Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 158 (Salvin and Godman's reference). 



Twenty specimens : Rio Hacha, Fonseca, and Valencia. 



These specimens agree well with a series from Tocuyo, northern 

 Venezuela, which are readily referable to this form, lately discrimin- 

 ated by Mr. Cory {Field Museum Ornithological Series, I, 1913, 292). 

 It differs from typical candei in its generally paler coloration, both 

 above and below ; in the cap being more restricted posteriorly ; in hav- 

 ing more white on the throat, with a corresponding reduction in size 

 of the black patch ; and in the tail being more sharply bicolor. 



This is one of the forms peculiar to the arid Venezuelan coast strip 

 which reaches the Santa Marta region at its northeastern extremity. 

 Many years ago Sclater recorded it from Rio Hacha, and it is certainly 

 an abundant bird along the river there, favoring the stretches of salt 

 plain and the outer fringes of the mangroves. It is found also in the 

 thorny scrub and cacti in almost equal abundance, and here spends most 

 of its time on the ground, hopping about and scratching a great deal. 

 Simons secured a specimen at Valencia, in the Rio Cesar Valley, and 

 his record has recently been confirmed by the writer. 



238. S}naallaxis albescens albigularis Sclater. 



Synallaxis albescens (not of Temminck) Bangs, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washing- 

 ton, XII, 1898, 177 (Palomina). — Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. XIII, 

 1900, 159 (Bangs' reference). 



33 Unfortunately, through inadvertence, given a masculine instead of a 

 feminine termination. 



