Carriker : List of the Birds of Costa Rica. 549 



Carnegie Museum: Escazu, La Hondura, La Estrella de Cartago, 

 Ujurras de Terraba, Juan Vifias (Carriker). Ten skins. 

 This is the common and most abundant species of Selasphorus in 

 Costa Rica, found almost everywhere over the central plateau above 

 3,500 or 4,000 feet, and up to the summits of the high volcanoes, 

 where it mingles with S. flammula. Its habits are about the same, 

 keeping in the low trees and shrubbery, buzzing about like a big 

 bumblebee, and darting from one flower to another ; and, when tired, 

 perching on a tiny twig in the same bush with the flowers upon which 

 they are feeding, or near by it. 



273. Selasphorus underwoodi Salvin. 



Selasphorus underwoodi Salvin, Ibis, 1897, 441 (Volcan de Irazu [Underwood]); 

 Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, Vol. VI, p. xxxviii. 



M. Simon says of this species: " Je ne possede pas S. underwoodi 

 Salvin, mais j'ai vu a Londres le type decrit par Salvin, envoye par 

 Underwood du Volcan de Irazu, et un autre cT de la collection Roths- 

 child a Tring. Cette espece est tout-a-fait proche de S. scintilla, mais 

 tres differente de S. ardens. Elle differe seulement de S. scintilla par 

 les rectrices medianes a bande noire mediane beaucoup plus large, les 

 rectrices externes noir-violatre dans leur moitie externe, rousses dans 

 l'interne, maisavec une longue tache submediane noir-violatre, aussi la 

 gorge rouge-orangee un peu moins brillante." 



When Salvin described this bird he compared it with S. ardens, 

 from which it is quite different, greatly resembling S. scintilla, from 

 which it differs only in the color of the tail and a different shade of 

 color on the throat. In S. scintilla the middle rectrices have a nar- 

 row median stripe of violet-black, with the outer rectrices without any 

 of this color on the outer web. In £. underwoodi the median stripe on 

 the middle rectrices is broader (about twice the width) and the median 

 portion of the outer web of the outer rectrices has a patch of the same 

 color as the inner web ; the color of the gorget is a little more bril- 

 liant orange-red. 



Mr. Bangs and myself have examined a large series of males of S. 

 scintilla, and while there were none of them exactly as the type of 

 S. underwoodi, there were several specimens approaching it, having 

 the median stripe on the middle rectrices broader, and with an indi- 

 cation of the patch on the outer web of the outer rectrices. 



Considering these facts I do not believe S. underwoodi to be any- 



