Volume Ii Part 1 (1/2)

Argentine Ornithology.

Volume II.

by P. L. Sclater and W. H. Hudson.

PREFACE.

This volume contains our account of all the Orders of Birds met with within the Argentine Republic except the Pa.s.seres, which were treated of in the First Volume. It also comprises an Appendix and Index, and completes the work. The Introduction is issued with this, but is intended to be bound up with the first volume, and is paged to follow the contents of that volume.

The total number of species which we have thus a.s.signed to the Argentine Avifauna is 434. To this list, no doubt, considerable additions will have to be made when the more remote provinces of the Republic have been explored. We trust that this work may at least serve to excite residents in Argentina to make fresh investigations, for we are quite aware how imperfect is the compilation now offered to the public.

It will be seen that in the following pages, as in the first volume, we have availed ourselves liberally of the information on Argentine birds contained in the writings of Dr. Burmeister, Mr. Barrows, and Mr.

Gibson. To all of these gentlemen we wish to offer our most sincere thanks, together with apologies for the liberty we have taken. We have likewise to express our high estimation of the valuable notes which we have extracted from the published writings of the late Henry Durnford and Ernest William White, both most promising Naturalists, and both alike lost to Science at an early age. Nor must we omit to record our thanks to Hans, Graf von Berlepsch, of Munden, Mr. Walter B. Barrows, and Mr. Frank Withington, and other friends and correspondents who have aided us by information and by the loan of specimens.

To the Zoological Society of London and to Mr. Henry Seebohm we are likewise much indebted for the loan of the woodcuts of which impressions are contained in these volumes.

P. L. S.

_February 1, 1889._

ARGENTINE ORNITHOLOGY.

Order II. MACROCHIRES.

Fam. XX. TROCHILIDae, or HUMMING-BIRDS.

Of the great American family Trochilidae, which, according to the most recent authorities, contains about 450 species, eleven members have been ascertained to occur within the limits of the Argentine Republic. But of these only three (_Calliperidia furcifera_, _Hylocharis sapphirina_, and _Chlorostilbon splendidus_) reach the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, where they occur as summer visitors. The remaining eight have been met with only in the northern and western provinces of Argentina. Of these two (_Oreotrochilus leucopleurus_ and _Patagona gigas_) are also found in Chili, the others are Bolivian and South-Brazilian species.

230. OREOTROCHILUS LEUCOPLEURUS, Gould.

(WHITE-SIDED HUMMING-BIRD.)

+Oreotrochilus leucopleurus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 81; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 615 (Catamarca); _Elliot, Syn. Troch._ p. 36; _Gould, Mon. Troch._ ii. pl. 71.

_Description._--Head, upper surface, and wings greyish olive-brown, pa.s.sing into dull coppery green on the upper tail-coverts; two central tail-feathers and outer one bronzy green, the others white, narrowly edged externally with brown; throat s.h.i.+ning green, bordered below by a band of black with bluish reflexions; flanks olive-brown; breast and sides of belly white; centre of belly black with steel-blue reflexions; under tail-coverts olive: whole length 50 inches, wings 27, tail 21. _Female_ above like male; beneath white, throat densely spotted with brown; flanks brownish.

_Hab._ Chili and Northern Argentina.

White obtained a single specimen of this Humming-bird in September 1880, at Fuerte de Andalgala, in Catamarca. It is a well-known species in Chili, where, according to Gould, ”it inhabits the sheltered valleys of the Andes, just below the line of perpetual congelation.”

231. CHaeTOCERCUS BURMEISTERI, Scl.

(BURMEISTER'S HUMMING-BIRD.)

[Plate XI.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHaeTOCERCUS BURMEISTERI.]