ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNITHOLOGY. 
XANTHORNUS PROSTHEMELAS, SrricKLAND. 
Duscription.—Head, neck, upper back, throat, breast, wings, 
upper tail-covers, and tail, deep black; abdomen, vent, lower tail- 
covers, under wing-covers, lesser wing-covers above, lower back and 
rump, bright yellow; beak black; base of lower mandible bluish; 
legs black. 
Total length, 7.5; beak to front, 7; to gape, 9; wing, 35; 
medial rectrices, 3:6; external, 2.9; tarsus, 1. 
The specimen here figured was procured by Mr. E. Wilson from 
Central America. A bird from Guatemala, in my own collection, 
differs in haying the lower tail-covers black instead of yellow, and 
in the yellow colour of the body being of a deeper and more saffron 
tint; the wing is 5, and the tail i longer than in Mr. Wilson’s bird. 
It is probably a more fully developed individual of the same gpecies. 
The beak of this bird, as in most of the species of Xanthornus 
Gf indeed it be possible to separate that genus from Icterus), is 
slightly curved, and nearly agrees in form with that of X chiryso- 
cephalus (Gmel.). I have been unable to identify the species with 
any of the descriptions to which I have access, but there are two or 
three Mexican ones described by Wagler in Oken’s Isis for 1829, 
with one of which it may possibly be synonynous.—H, #. Striekland. 

120-14 
