PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 353 



somewhat larger than given by Mr. Selater. Compared with T. rufes- 

 certs, the hill is longer; the color above is duller, being brownish; the 

 under surface is very much paler; in rufesccns the bands on the tail are 

 more numerous and better defined. 



Fain. SYLVICOLID.E. 



8. Dendrcsca ruflsula, Baird. 



'•Yellow Bird. ^L'Oiseau Jaime.' 



u Length, $ , 5 in.; alar extent, 7^; wing, 2J. 



"Is generally distributed throughout the island. In the old fields 

 once cultivated for cane, and now suffered to return to pasturage, where 

 generally the guavas are abundant, this bird will be found, searching 

 about the stems and leaves of the shrub for insects. These same guava 

 bushes are also the chosen hiding places of the venomous spiders — the 

 Tarantula, and many ii hairy monster came to grief, while myself and 

 little black assistants were beating the bushes for birds. It is a most 

 thorough exterminator of the small insects of the island." 



This species is surely the one referred to Sylvia rvjieapiUa, Lath. 

 (MotaciJla mflcapilla, Gin.), by Vieillot (Xouv. Diet. xi. 1817. 228), sup- 

 posing it to be the same. They differ very materially, the entire head 

 and throat being rufous in the Martinique bird, and so described by 

 Vieillot ; whereas in 1). ruficaspilla, the crown only is stated to be rufous. 



Martinique is the locality given, also, fori), ntjieapilla. which prob- 

 ably was the cause of Vieillot being misled. 



As the name of ruficapiUa belongs to another species, Prof. Baird 

 (Rev. of Amer. Birds, p. 204) applied to Vieillot \s species that of r,>ii- 

 gala. He then speaks of a specimen in the Museum of the Philadelphia 

 Academy of Sciences, labelled "& nifimpiUa^ without indication of 

 locality. He says : It agrees very well, especially in the greater exten- 

 sion of the rufous of the throat, with the Sylvia rujicapilla of Vieillot. 

 from Martinique; and it may be really a West Indian species." 



Since then, in u North American Birds," p. 217. under Ik ntfigiila, 

 there being under examination ;i bird from Panama, which ii was 

 thought might be the species described by Vieillot, he has in a footnote 

 the following remark: "Should Vieillot's species be really from .Mar- 

 tinique, in all probability the present bird will be found to b« different, 

 and therefore not entitled to the name here given." 



It now being established that Martinique is the true patria of this 

 form, Prof. Band's name of />. rufiguUt must be used for it The 

 male agrees with the description given by him of Vieillot's species, viz, 

 in having "the rufous of entire head extending down the neck tojugu- 

 iiim." The measurements of the wing and tail are just tin- same sua 

 given by Prof. Baird, i. e., wing, 2.25; tail, 2. 

 There is but one specimen of the female in Mr. Ober's collection, in 

 Proc. STat. Mus. 78 23 Mar. I*i 1879. 



