^20 MNIOTILTIDiE. 



surrounded by long hanging mosses. Its shape varies from the simple weaving of the 

 surrounding moss, in which a small hole leads to a cup-shaped chamber, to a globular 

 pensile nest without lining and having an entrance in one side \ 



Though a well-marked species without any near allies, the synonymy of Parula ame- 

 ricana is a long story, the intricacies of which Dr. Coues has unravelled with great care 

 and patience ^^. 



2. Parula inornata. (Tab. VIII. fig. 1.) 



Parula inornata, Baird, Eev. Am. B. i. p. 171 ^ Lawr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. ix. p. 93 ^ Salv. P. Z. S. 



1870, p. 183'. 

 Pai-ula brasiliana, Scl. & Salv. P.Z. S. 1860, p. 397 (nee Lieht.) \ 



Supra cseruleseenti-soHstacea, plaga magna dorsaU oleaginea; fronte, loris et genis nigricantibus ; alis dorso 

 concoloribuB ; subtus flavissima, crisso albo; cauda utrinque albo notata; rostri maxiUa nigra, mandibula 

 flava; pedibus coryUnis. Long, tota 4-3, alse 1-9, caudse 1-55, rostri a rictu 0-5, tarsi 0-65. (Descr. exempli 

 ex Cboctum, Vera Paz. Mus. nostr.) 



06s. Speciminaqu^dam ex statu Panamensi maculas alares albas serie singula nee dupHci positas habent. 



Hah. Guatemala, Choctum {0. S. & F. D. G.^ 3) ; Costa Rica, Barranca and Dota 

 Mountains {F. Carmiol 2), Angostura (/. Carmiol) ; Panama, Volcan de Chiriqui, 

 Boquete de Chitra, Calobre {ArcS ^). 



It is questionable if P. inornata is really specifically distinct from its southern ally 

 P. pitiayumi, from which the typical bird differs in the absence of the two white wing- 

 bars so conspicuous in the southern race. 



The Guatemalan bird which Prof. Baird described has a plain-coloured wing with 

 only faint indications of the distal wing-bar; but in specimens from the State of 

 Panama this bar is clearly shown, the proximal bar being just indicated by obsolete 

 spots. These birds, therefore, are distinctly intermediate between the unhanded P. 

 inornata and the double-banded P. pitiayumi, and might almost as well be placed with 

 one as with the other. 



In Colombia the true P. pitayumi appears, and thence spreads over nearly the whole 

 of ^uth America as far as the Argentine Republic and Bolivia. Throughout this wide 

 area birds do not appreciably differ. 



As already stated P. inornata was first described from a Guatemalan specimen. This 

 is still in our collection, and is the bird now figured. In Guatemala the species is a 

 rare one, and very few specimens have come under our notice ; its range is probably 

 restricted to the forest-region of Vera Paz. In Costa Rica and Panama it is much more 

 abundant, and we have received an abundant supply of specimens from those countries ; 

 but from the line of the Panama railway it is apparently absent, as M'Leannan never 

 met with it during the years he worked at the ornithology of that district. 



