Mr. D. G. Elliot on the Trocliilidse. 
41 
tions/^ he probably had more than one example before him^ and 
a made-up bird must have been detected,, as the tails of the two 
species in question are too conspicuously difPerent^ and the plu¬ 
mage of the body also,, for any one to be deceived by a manu¬ 
factured specimen. There is another reason also against Mr. 
Gould^’s supposition: viz., it is quite evident Lesson did not have 
the body of T. leucogaster before him; for in his description 
he says, toutes les parties superieures d^un vert dore uni- 
forme,*’^ which certainly does not apply to T. leucogaster, which 
has this portion grass-green instead of golden green. The 
difficulty, however, is in the bill; and as Lesson both figures 
the mandible as white, and emphasizes this by calling the 
bird albirostris, it would seem to be best to reject his name 
and adopt that of Mr. Gould, chionopectus ; for of all the 
species composing the group with the throat and breast white, 
the present is the only one that has an entirely black bill, 
and the name albirostris would therefore be in the highest 
degree inapplicable to it. The species is generally met with' 
in all collections of birds of this family, as it is sent to Europe 
in considerable numbers, being very common in the localities 
it frequents. 
I have a specimen of this bird obtained by Mr. Goering, 
near Merida, Venezuela. 
^ 2 . Thaumatias leucogaster. 
Trochilus leucogaster, Gmel. Syst. Nat. tom. i. p. 495. 
Thaumatias leucogaster, Gould, Mon. Troch. v. pi. 294; 
id. Intr. Mon. Troch. 8vo ed. p. 152. 
Agyrtria terpna, Heine, Journ. fur. Ornith. 1863, p. 184? 
Hab. Brazil, Cayenne, Bogota? [Lindig). 
Brisson was apparently the first to give a comprehensive 
Latin description of this species, under the name of Melli- 
suga cayennensis ventre albo, which Gmelin supplanted 
by Trochilus leucogaster [1. c.), accepted since his time by 
ornithologists generally. It is easily recognized among the 
members of the group in which I have placed it by its steel- 
black tail, which renders it conspicuously diflPerent from all 
its relatives. It is apparently confined in its range to 
