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Show 28 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE GENUS TYRANNUS. [Jail. 20, 1. Remarks on some Species of the Genus Tyrannus. By P. L. S C L A T E R , M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. (Plate III.) Mr. Ridgway has lately contributed to the 'Proceedings of the United-States National Museum ' an excellent paper on the genus Tyrannus1. As I have a good series of examples of the species of this genus in m y collection, and have paid some attention to the subject I beg leave to offer the following remarks on Mr. Ridgway's paper. Mr. Ridgway's views as to the limits of the genus Tyrannus coincide very nearly with mine as expressed in my 'Catalogue of American Birds' and in the 'Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium.' Mr. Ridgway allows 13 species of the genus Tyrannus, while Mr. Salvin and I in the last-named work only recognized 11. Mr. Ridgway's two additional species are Tyrannus apolites (Cab. et Heine) and a supposed new species which he proposes to call Tyrannus lug-geri. As regards the first of these, it was omitted from our list, because it seemed probable that it might have been founded on a young individual of one of the races of T. melancholicus. And after again studying the original descriptions, I have no other reasonable conjecture to offer on the subject. Concerning Tyrannus luggeri, however, I can give some more certain information, Mr. Salvin having received from Mr. Ridgway in exchange an example of this species, which I now exhibit. As will be seen, Tyrannus luggeri of Demerara is identical with the bird called in my collection Myiozetetes sulphureus (Spix)2, and is, I think, better referred to the genus Myiozetetes, though a somewhat aberrant member of it, than to Tyrannus. There remain, then, 11 species of Tyrannus, which both Mr. Ridgway and I acknowledge as veritable species of the genus ; and, moreover, our names for them are fortunately the same, except as regards Mr. Ridgway's T. carolinensis and T. dominicensis, which in conformity with the Stricklandian Code I call T. pipiri and T. griseus. But I am more fortunate than Mr. Ridgway in having in my collection examples of T. albigularis and T. niveigularis, two species which are unknown to him. A few words upon these somewhat rare birds may be useful to Mr. Ridgway and to other ornithologists. Tyrannus albigularis, Burm. Syst. Ueb. ii. p. 465, though most nearly related to T. melancholicus,'"is, I think, quite a distinct species. M y example of it is an adult male, obtained by Natterer near Goyaz in Brazil, in July 1823. At first sight the pure white throat and want of any greenish tinge on the yellow breast render it easily distinguishable from T. melancholicus. Above the plumages of the two birds are more nearly similar, although the back of T. albigularis is decidedly of a more yellowish olive. The tail (fig. 1), is also 1 " Descriptions of new Species and Races of American Birds, including a Synopsis of the Genus Tyrannus, Cuvier. By Robert Ridgway," Proc U S Nat Mus. i. p. 16fi (1879). 2 Oat. Am. Birds, p. 220. |