210 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



In addition to the generally recognized species of Pionus, two others have been 

 described, and may represent valid species, as follows: 



Pionus reichenowi. — Pionias reichenowi Heine, Journ. fiir Orn., April, 1884, 264 

 (Brazil; coll. Heine Mus.).— Pionus reichenowi Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xx, 

 1891, 324, footnote. Allied to P. menstruus and, according to Salvadori, possibly a 

 color variety of that species. 



Pionus lacerus.— P[ionias\ lacerus Heine, Journ. fiir Orn., April, 1884, 265 (Tucu- 

 man, Argentina).— Pionus lacerus Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xx, 1891, 329, 

 footnote. Allied to P. maximiliani. 



PIONUS MENSTRUUS (Linnaeus). 



BLUE-HEADED PARROT. 



Adults (sexes alike). — Head and neck violaceous blue or gentian 

 blue, the feathers narrowly and indistinctly margined terminally with 

 darker, the concealed portion of each passing through greenish into 

 dark olive, the base grayish white; a large auricular spot (more or 

 less distinct) of dull black; back, scapulars, and proximal secondaries 

 deep parrot green; rump and upper tail-coverts more grass green, 

 changing to scheele's green in certain lights; lesser wing-coverts 

 warbler green (or between this and pyrite yellow) to light oil green 

 glossed with javel green, the middle and greater coverts more 

 decidedly green; alulae, primary coverts, primaries, and distal sec- 

 ondaries (sometimes proximal secondaries also) grass green, indis- 

 tinctly edged with lighter green; middle pair of rectrices grass green, 

 usually tinged with blue at tip, sometimes (old feathers?) wholly 

 olivaceous-black; second pair of rectrices with outer web grass green 

 passing into greenish blue terminally, the inner web with basal half 

 (approximately) dusky; remaining rectrices with outer webs deep 

 violet-blue edged with light blue, the inner webs red (dull spectrum 

 red or Chinese vermilion) for proximal two-thirds or more, bluish 

 green on distal portion; throat usually mostly grayish white, but 

 this more or less broken by dusky mesial streaks and suffusions of 

 dull blue, the lower portion more or less suffused or intermixed with 

 light red, forming a more or less distinct patch; chest grayish blue or 

 dull blue, sometimes nearly uniform but usually more or less broken 

 by indistinct, partly concealed broad bars of olive or dusky; rest of 

 under parts light parrot green glossed with scheele's green, the pos- 

 terior flanks usually with concealed spots of red; under tail-coverts 

 red (dull spectrum red) with narrow shaft-streaks of dusky and rather 

 small triangular terminal spots of light green (sometimes tinged with 

 light grayish blue) ; under surface of wing grass green, the remiges 

 with a broad stripe of blackish slate next to shaft, broadest on longer 

 primaries, which are also edged with dusky on distal (narrowed) por- 

 tion; bill dusky horn color, paler on gonys, the lower basal portion of 

 maxilla (beneath nostril) dull light red; bare orbital space dusky (in 

 dried skins) ; iris brown; legs and feet dusky brownish or olivaceous. 



