THE IBIS. 
No. I. JANUARY 1859. 
I. —On the Ornithology of Central America. Part I. By Philip 
Lutley Sclater and Osbert Salvin. 
Although the birds of Central America are tolerably well 
known to us from the numerous travellers and collectors who 
have explored different parts of its shores, and supplied the 
museums of Europe with specimens, no writer has as yet at¬ 
tempted anything like a general account of the ornithology of 
this remarkable country, where winter visitants from the northern 
portion of the New World mix with others of peculiar form and 
splendid plumage, which recall to one’s memory the most brilliant 
ornaments of the tropical bird-faunas of Brazil and Cayenne. 
A considerable number of specimens having been lately trans¬ 
mitted to England from Guatemala—perhaps the most attract¬ 
ive part of the great Central-American isthmus,—and one of 
the writers of the present article having himself passed some 
months in that country, and collected specimens and made 
notes upon its birds, it has been thought that the opportunity 
should not be lost of attempting a sketch of the ornithology of 
this region, in order to form a foundation upon which a more 
complete work may hereafter be established. It is proposed, 
therefore, in the present paper, to give a list, with incidental 
remarks, of all the species of birds which are certainly known to 
inhabit Central America, from the confines of Mexico to where 
the Isthmus again contracts in the republic of Honduras, and 
the route of the proposed Honduras Interoceanic Railway gives 
a convenient southern boundary. 
VOL. i. 
4 
B 
