1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 625 



its altitudinal range was not found to extend beyond the upper border of the 

 Tropical Zone, just as the range of 0. salmoni did not reach below the lower 

 border of the Subtropical Zone. Consequently from our base at Miraflores 

 (alt. 6200 ft.) in the Central Andes, near the junction of these two zones, 

 decumanus could be secured by working downward, salmoni by going up- 

 ward, and although found within an hour's journey of one another they were 

 never found together. 



Our twenty-two specimens from the Cauca and Magdalena as well as 

 thirteen specimens from Panama (Tapalisa; El Real; Chepigana; Canal 

 Zone; Boqueron, Chiriqui) are uniformly glossy black and agree with six 

 topotypical examples from Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, four of which have 

 been kindly loaned, and two presented to us by Mr. T. E. Penard. 



A male from La Morelia and a female from Florencia have a purplish 

 tinge to the plumage which is more or less margined with deep chestnut. 

 In birds from Trinidad and the Paria Peninsula, this chestnut edging is 

 highly developed on the back and abdominal region, but it is less pronounced 

 in British Guiana birds and is wholly absent on some, and shows but little 

 on other Dutch Guiana specimens which, as said above, closely resemble 

 Colombia and Panama examples.' 



Peque, 2; La Manuelita, 3; below Miraflores (4500 ft.), 3; Rio Frio, 1; 

 La Palma, 2; near Honda, 7; Algodonal, 1; Opon, 3; Barrigon, 2; Flor- 

 encia, 1; La Morelia, 1. 



(4448) Ostinops salmoni Scl. 



Ostinops salmoni Scl., Ibis, 1883, p. 153, pi. vi (Envigado, Col.); Stone, Proo. 

 Acad. N. S. Phila., 1899, p. 307 (R. Combeima, Nevada del ToUma). 



Ostinops airocastaneus Scl. & Salv., P. Z. S., 1879, p. 509 (Concordia; Envigado; 

 Frontino). 



One of the most characteristic species of the Subtropical Zone of the 

 Western Andes and western slope of the Central Andes. While it obviously 

 represents 0. airocastaneus of western Ecuador, our most southern specimens 

 of salmoni (Gallera; La Sierra) show no perceptible approach toward our 

 most northern specimen of airocastaneus (Gualea), and the characters which 

 separate them are so pronounced that I should not feel warranted in treating 

 them as subspecies without more positive evidence of intergradation than 

 our specimens exhibit. 



1 These blackbirds have since been described as Ostinops decumanus melanterus by W. E. Clyde 

 Todd, from Las Vegas, Santa Marta, Col. (Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash,, XXX, 1917, p. 3) but as shown 

 above, Colombian specimens resemble others from Dutch Guiana. 



