BRACHYGALBA GOEBINGI. 



GOEINa'S JAGAMAE. 

 PLATE XII. 



BracJiygalha goeringi, Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S. 1869, p. 253, pi. xviii. 



'■^ Brachygalba lugubris (Sw.)," Lawr. Ann, Lye. N. Y. ix. p. 274 (1869). 



Brachygalba goeringi, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 105 (1873). 



Suprk aeneo-viridis ; capite coUoque toto fuscis^ supereiliis indistinctis et nudiS. paulo dilutioribus flavicanti 

 tinctis ; subtus nigricans, gutture et ventre medio cum crisso albis ; plumis in ventre medio ferrugineo 

 tinctis ; subalaribus nigris, remigibus intus ad basin albis ; rostro et pedibus nigris : long, tota 7-0, 

 alse 2"75j caudse 2*3, rostri a rictu 2'0. Fem. mari similis, sed ventre medio fere omnino ferrugineo. 



Hab. in Venezuela ad littora lacus Valenciae. 



Foe the discovery of this Jacamar v^^e are indebted to the exertions of Anton Goring, a well- 

 known German artist and naturalist, who formerly travelled along with Burmeister in the Argentine 

 Eepublic, and afterwards passed several years in Venezuela. Goring met with this species on 

 the shores of the Lake of Valencia, a sheet of water situated in the coast-range of the Venezuelan 

 Andes to the south of Puerto Cabello, to which he made excursions from San Esteban, a village 

 six miles inland from Puerto Cabello. In the notes accompanying the descriptions of this and 

 other birds from the, same locality by Mr. Salvin and myself, read before the Zoological Society 

 of London in 1869, Mr. Goring tells us that the Lake of Valencia seems to be a favourite station 

 for the birds of the llanos and river-districts of Venezuela in the dry season, when thousands of 

 feathered visitors resort to it. " The mountains to the south of the lake, the Serra Azul of 

 Guigac, are tenanted by the same species of birds as the adjoining coast-range; but the vegeta- 

 tion is not so rank, and those of small size are not so numerous. Most of the species are 

 different from those of Eastern Venezuela." Near Maruria, at the foot of the Serra of Guigac, 

 this Jacamar was met with by Mr. Goring in pairs in the month of October 1878, the two birds 

 sitting close to each other on the branches of trees. The iris is noted as " red-brown," and the 

 bill, legs, and feet as " black." 



The only other collector who appears to have obtained an example of this Jacamar is 

 Mr. W. B. Gilbert, who accompanied the Venezuelan branch of Professor Orton's Amazonian 

 Expedition in 1868. Mr. Gilbert's specimen, which has been deposited in the Museum of 

 Vassar College, was also obtained at Valencia. It is referred by Mr. Lawrence {I. s. c.) to the 

 Galhula lugubris of Swainson. But this view I cannot agree to. Swainson's description seems 

 to me to agree in every respect much better with the species which I formerly called Galhula 

 inornata than with the present bird. And having, as already stated, now received an example 

 ScL. Jac. & Puffb. No. Yl.—January, 1880. G 



