MERULA CACOZELA, Оштат Вапдз. 
SANTA-MARTA GIANT OUZEL. 
Merula gigas (nec Fraser), Salvin & Godman, Ibis, 1879, p. 198. 
Merula gigas cacozela, Bangs, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, xii. p. 181 (1898). 
M. maxima : alá 6:25 poll. : olivascenti-brunnea, gastrzo vix pallidiore: caudá olivascente. 
Тнів species appears to be very distinct, and the three specimens in the British Museum from 
the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are all much more olive in colour than true M. gigas. 
Mr. Seebohm had clearly distinguished it, and had had a separate Plate drawn, with a name 
engraved thereon. As I could not find where he had published this name, I brought it forward as 
new at a meeting of the British Ornithologists Club in the winter of 1898, but the description by 
Mr. Outram Bangs reached England about the same time, and I was thus enabled to suppress 
Seebohm's MSS. title. 
Mr. F. А. A. Simons procured a specimen in February 1878 at San Sebastian, in the Sierra 
Nevada of Santa Marta, at a height of 6700 feet, as recorded by Messrs. Salvin and Godman (Ibis, 
1879, p. 198). Mr. Simons afterwards obtained two more specimens at 9000 feet in Sept. 1879, 
which are also in their collection. Messrs. Salvin and Godman remarked on the paler colour of the 
Santa Marta specimens, but did not consider them worthy of specific separation. 
Three specimens procured in June 1898 by Mr. W. W. Brown at Macotama (8000 feet), in the 
Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, have been described by Mr. Outram Bangs as a subspecies of M. gigas. 
He duly remarks upon the more olive colour of the specimens, and also draws attention to the 
shorter tail of M. cacozela. In the specimens in the British Museum I do not find any difference in 
the length of the tail between M. cacozela and M. gigas, all the examples being of about the 
same dimensions. 
Adult. Similar to M. gigas, but much more olive and with a larger bill. General colour above 
olive-brown, the crown scarcely browner than the back; quills and tail sepia-brown, externally olive 
or edged with olive; lores black; ear-coverts dark brown, almost of the same tint as the crown ; 
cheeks, throat, and breast pale earthy-brown, fading into light olivaceous-brown on the abdomen; 
the throat with some broad blackish streaks; thighs ashy-brown ; under tail-coverts brown, darker 
than the abdomen, and with olivaceous margins; under wing-coverts and axillaries brown, a little 
darker than the breast; quills sepia-brown below, ashy on the inner webs: “ bill and feet orange- 
yellow ; eyes orange-yellow ” (F. A. A. Simons). Total length 12:5 inches, culmen 1:2, wing 6:25, 
tail 5:35, tarsus 1:75. 
The description and figure in the Plate are both taken from the San Sebastian specimens in the 
Salvin-Godman Collection. [В В. 8.] 
