BUCCO PULMENTUM. 



THE DENSELY SPECKLED PUFF-BIRD. 

 PLATE XXXI. Fig. 2. 



Tarniatia {Nyctactes) pulmentum, Bp. et Verr. MS. 



JBucco ■pulmentum, ScL P. Z. S. 1855, p. 194, t. 106. 



JBucco ^ulmentum, Scl. P. Z. S. 1857, p. 262. 



Bucco jiulmentum, ScL Cat. A. B. p. 270 (1862). 



Chaunornis pulmentum. Cab. et Heine, Mus. Hein. iv. p. 146 (1863). 



Bucco j^ulmentum, ScL et Salv. P, Z. S. 1873, p. 295. 



Bucco pulmentum, ScL et Salv. NomencL p. 106 (1873). 



Supra fuliginoso-bruimeus^ rufescenti plus miuusve transversim striatus ; fronte et superciliis rufescentibus ; 

 torque angusto cervicis posticse et \mek utrinque suboculari albis ; coUo antico pallide rufescente vitta 

 nigra utrinque marginato ; ventre albo maculis rotundis nigris confertissinie maculato ; subalaribus et 

 remigum marginibus iaternis cinnamomeis ; rostro nigro_, pedibus plumbeis : long, tota 6'4^ alse %'9, 

 caudse 2'2, rostri 1-1. Fern, mari similis. 



Hab. in Amazonia superiore. 



Obs. Species prsecedenti simillima, et fronte paulum rufescentiore, gutture dilutiore et ventris maculis 

 crebrioribus et magis nigris vix diversa. 



The late Prince Charles Bonaparte, formerly Prince of Canino and Musignano, was certainly one 

 of the most remarkable men I have ever been acquainted with. Always ardently attached to the 

 study of natural objects, especially of birds, he was at various periods of his life (when he was 

 forced to abstain from politics) a hard and skilful worker in ornithology. As the author of the 

 well-known continuation of Wilson's 'Birds of America,' and of numerous other works and 

 papers, above all of the celebrated ' Conspectus Generum Avium,' his name will ever live in the 

 annals of our science. A most keen and accurate observer, he was always able to say at a glance 

 whether a species was new to him or not, and ready to bestow on it an appropriate, if not always 

 strictly classical, name. 



The latter part of his life Bonaparte passed at Paris in his house in the Rue de Lille, where 

 ornithologists of all countries found a ready welcome. It was here, on the occasion of one of the 

 many visits I paid to him, that he showed me the first examples I had met with of the present 

 Puff-bird, and told me that he should call it '•'■pulmentum,'' from the plum-pudding-like appearance 

 of its belly. This name, however, he never published ; and it remained in MS., attached to the 

 labels of the bird-skins of Verreaux freres upon which it was originally written, until I described 

 the species under the same name about a year later. 



Whether, however, Bucco pulmentum is really entitled to the dignity of a particular specific 



