It is hoped that the facts and suggestions here presented may throw some light on the subject of winter Robins and perhaps help to point out some new lines of inquiry, so that before long additional observations and investigations may make the full truth of the matter clear. The observations of the winter of 1917-18 were unusual, but it is often by a study of the unusual that the usual is understood.
REMARKS ON BEEBE’S ‘TROPICAL WILD LIFE.’
BY THOMAS E. PENARD.
In a previous number of ‘The Auk’ (1918, XXXV, p. 91), Dr. Witmer Stone reviewed briefly this interesting volume published by the New York Zoölogical Society, presenting the first season’s work at the tropical research station, established in British Guiana under the direction of Mr. William Beebe. The results obtained by Mr. Beebe and his associates are of such interest and importance, and the work in general so deserving of the reviewer’s praise, that I feel rather reluctant in offering a few slight corrections. My observations are not intended as criticisms, and I would hardly have thought it worth while to express them, were it not for the fact that the very excellence and authoritative character of Mr. Beebe’s book might perhaps have the effect of creating a few misleading impressions in regard to some minor matters with which it deals.
In Chapter VIII Mr. Beebe gives a list of the birds of the Bartica District, in which, for the sake of completeness, he includes some species collected by Whitely at the same place, and listed by Salvin in ‘The Ibis’ for 1885 and 1886. Twenty-two species are starred to indicate that they are new to the Colony of British Guiana. Of this number, however, at least eighteen have been previously recorded from various localities in the Colony as follows:
Columba plumbea plumbea Vieillot. Listed by Salvin (Ibis, 1886, p. 173) from Bartica Grove and Camacusa. Percival (Birds of the Botanic Gardens, 1893, Argosy reprint, p. 6) says that it is “unfrequent in Gardens, though a common species.” Dawson (Hand-list of the Birds of British Guiana, 1916, p. 51) lists it as a Colonial species. Some of these records may, however, apply to Œnœnas purpureotincta (Ridgway). The form inhabiting British Guiana is Œnœnas plumbea locutrix (Max.).
Ibycter americanus (Boddaert). Bonson (P. Z. S., 1851, p. 56) records it from Br. Guiana under the name of “Red-headed Carracarra.” It is listed by Salvin (l. c., 1886, p. 77) from Bartica Grove and Camacusa; by Quelch (Timehri, 1890, p. 102 and p. 334) from Demerara Falls and Upper Berbice; by Chubb (The Birds of British Guiana, 1916, i., p. 216, McConnell coll.) from Kamakabra River, etc., giving range in Br. Guiana; and by Dawson (l. c., p. 7).
Urochroma batavica (Boddaert). —Lloyd (Timehri, 1895, p. 272, sub nom. Urochroma cingulata) mentions it as formerly very plentiful in the neighborhood of “Groete Creek,” and (l. c., p. 278) gives local range as Essequibo River and N. W. District; F. P. and A. P. Penard (De Vögels van Guyana, 1908, i, p. 523) say these birds are not unfrequently seen in Surinam and Demerara during the Dry Season; Chubb (l. c., p. 336, sub nom. Touit batavica) records specimens from Supenaam River and other localities, and gives range in Br. Guiana; and Dawson (l. c., p. 20) lists it as the “Black-winged Parakeet.”