34 



volume, entitled ' Histoire Naturelle des Promerops et des Guepiers,' in which he continued his 

 series of monographs, and added in a supplement figures and descriptions of some subsequently 

 acquired species of the groups contained in the ' Oiseaux de Paradis.' Amongst these additional 

 species was given the first account of the present Jacamar, of which Levaillant had then recently 

 received examples from South America, under the name of "Le Jacamar a ventre blanc." 

 Levaillant's French appellation was latinized by Vieillot in 1817, and by Cuvier in 1829, 

 without any further information being given as to the species in question. 



Eichard Schomburgk was the first naturalist who seems to have met with Galbula alhiventris 

 in its native wilds. Swainson, in his ' Two Centenaries and a Quarter of birds either new or 

 imperfectly described,' an essay attached to his volume on Animals in Menageries, published in 

 Lardner's ' Cabinet Cyclopaedia,' described the male of this Jacamar from one of Schomburgk's 

 specimens as Galbula alMventer. In the third volume of Schomburgk's ' Reise in Britisch 

 Guiana ' this name was adopted, but the only information added was that in habits and ways 

 of life the present species resembles the Jacamars previously spoken of, i. e. G. viridis, Urogalba 

 paradisea, and others. 



In 1847 the male of Galbula leucogastra was well figured in Gray and Mitchell's ' Genera 

 of Birds' from a specimen in the British Museum. 



In their excellent memoir on the Galbulidae, given in the fourth part of the ' Museum 

 Heineanum,' Messrs. Cabanis and Heine proposed to place this and the following species in a 

 new genus, '■'' Caucalias" on account of their " small bill, pointed wings, shorter tail, and peculiar 

 coloration." There can be no question that these birds slightly diverge from the more typical 

 species of Galbula in the points thus particularized, but not sufficiently, I think, to render a new 

 generic appellation necessary. I have therefore decided to retain them in the genus Galbula. 



The White-bellied Jacamar does not appear to be anywhere a very abundant species, 

 although it has a tolerably wide distribution. Like most of the birds of Guiana and Cayenne 

 it extends into Lower Amazonia. Our countryman Mr. Wallace obtained examples of it near 

 Guia, on the Rio Negro ; and the famous Austrian field-naturalist Johann Natterer met with it 

 at Marabitanas, rather higher up the same river. Natterer also collected specimens of this 

 Jacamar at Borba, on the Eio Madeira, in " the forest of the Campina." He found it solitary, 

 in the months of July and August. He notes the bill and eye-ring in the male as black, and the 

 iris dark brown, the feet nearly black, with the tarsi underneath at their bases passing into 

 brown. In the female he describes the bill as black, the eye-ring as blackish grey, the iris 

 " very dark brown," the feet " nearly black, passing slightly into violet." 



In the male of Galbula leucogastra the plumage above is of a metallic green, most of the 

 feathers on the back being broadly edged with coppery brown. This colour also extends over 

 the outer edgings of the wing-coverts and secondaries, the primaries being of a dull black. 

 Below the whole of the breast is of the same colour as the back : the chin is black, succeeded 

 by a large triangular white patch which occupies the whole of the throat. The belly, under- 

 wing-coverts, and inner margins of the wing-feathers are white. The bill, the naked lores, and 

 the feet are apparently black. The female is rather smaller in dimensions, and has the throat- 

 patch and belly of a pale ochraceous. The tail in both sexes is, on the lower surface, of a dark 

 cinereous or dull black, on the upper surface, especially in the two middle rectrices, glossed with 



