192 



ORNITHOLOGY, 



recent extensive investigations and explorations in Western North 

 America, the Zoology of that immense region is yet but fairly entered 

 upon only, and very far from being exhausted. The existence of un- 

 known species in any group of birds is by no means to be doubted, so 

 far as relates to the immense regions between the Rocky Mountains 

 and the Pacific Ocean. 



2. Genus TODIRAMPHUS, Lesson, Voy. Coquille, Zool. I, p. 684 (1826). 

 1. ToDiRAMPHUS TUTA [Qmelw). 



Ah-edo tuta et sncra, Gm. Syst. Nat. I, p. 453 (1788). 

 A/cedo collaris, FoRSTER, Desc. An. p. 162 (1844). 



Dacelo coronata, Peale, Zool. U. S. Exp. Exp. Vincennes, Birds, p. 160 (1st edition, 

 1848).* 



^' Alcedo veneraia, Gmelin," Pelzeln. Sitzungs. Akad. Vienna, XX, p. 503 (1856). 



Plate XV, fig. 1, Adult. 2, 3, Young. 



There is not, perhaps, in the entire circle of Birds, a genus, the 

 species of which are more difficult to determine or more liable to be 

 confounded, than those of the genus Todiramplias. In the colors of 

 many of the species there is so much similarity that the consideration 

 of form and measurements as specific characters becomes of a high de- 

 gree of importance, and there are few groups in which these characters 

 assume such a great value. Several species present marked differ- 



* " Crown, back, wings, and tail blue; aurieulars black, tipped with blue, a black line 

 reaching from them around the back of the head; throat, coronal band, collar, breast, 

 belly, vent, and under tail-coverts white; collar margined with black and shaded with 

 buff; coronal band also edged with buff; under wing-coverts pale buff ; quills dusky, 

 the outer margins blue, shafts dusky beneath, black above, third and fourth quills equal, 

 slightly longer than the second, first and fifth equal ; tail rounded, shafts dusky beneath, 

 black above ; bill nearly black ; lower half of the under mandible white ; legs dusky ; 

 irides brown. 



" Total length, nine inches ; extent of wings, thirteen and a half inches ; wings, from 

 the carpal joint, three and eight-tenths inches; tail, two and six-tenths inches; tarsi, six- 

 tenths of an inch ; middle toe, including claw, seventeen-twentieths of an inch; claw, 

 three-tenths of an inch ; hind toe, half an inch ; claw, two-tenths of an inch ; bill, one 

 and four-tenths of an inch; to the angle of the mouth, one and nine-tenths of an inch. 

 Adult male." 



