Todd-Carriker : Birds of Santa Marta Region^ Colombia. 481 



lection of the Carnegie Museum led to the interesting discovery that 

 the Santa Marta birds were readily distinguishable from a series of 

 Bolivian skins ^"^ by their generally darker coloration, this being ap- 

 parent in both sexes. The latter are distinctly brownish in tone, 

 whether in fresh or worn plumage, with the chestnut shading on the 

 feathers of the upper parts much more pronounced (in males at least). 

 The Colombian birds, on the contrary, are deep glossy black, with 

 little or no chestnut tipping to the feathers of the upper, and under 

 parts. Venezuelan and Trinidad birds agree with those from Bolivia. 

 From Surinam, the accepted type-locality of Xanthornus decumanus 

 Pallas, no specimens have been available, but a Cayenne bird (No. 

 34,743, Collection Museum Comparative Zoology, adult male) presents 

 the extreme of brownness, the upper parts being practically chestnut, 

 except on the head and neck, with broad chestnut edgings to the scapu- 

 lars; the posterior under parts are likewise heavily shaded with chest- 

 nut. The characters here pointed out have been found to hold good 

 for the series of this species in the collections of Mr. James H. Flem- 

 ing and of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and also, according 

 to Dr. Harry C. Oberholser, who studied it at the writer's request, 

 in that of the U. S. National Museum. Panama skins are easily 

 referable to the form here described, but no specimens from Colombia 

 south of the coast region have been examined. There is of course 

 some variation in both forms, and occasional specimens may be dif- 

 ficult to place offhand, but on the whole the differential characters 

 seem to be fairly constant — certainly sufficiently so to justify the sub- 

 division of the species as indicated. 



This bird was found by the writer only on the north and west slopes 

 of the San Lorenzo, from the lower edge of the foothills up to about 

 4,000 feet, although above 2,500 feet it was rare. Mr. Brown, how- 

 ever, secured it at Palomina, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet in the 

 Sierra Nevada, as well as at La Concepcion and Chirua, and Simons 

 recorded it from San Jose, at the same altitude, and from Atanquez, 

 a thousand feet lower down — ^both localities being on the south slope of 

 this range. It seems thus to be a bird of the foothills region of the 

 Tropical Zone, but extending in reduced numbers into the Subtropical 

 also. For some reason it seemed to be entirely absent in the humid 

 forest section of the northeast coast, where it was replaced by Cacicus 



*i Dr. Chapman, however, considers these separable from true decumanus. 



