Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 27



We found this remarkable bird not uncommon in the thick Forests of Pitanga, near Bahia, during our travels in Brazil in the years 1815-7. Yet although the male birds were frequent, we were never fortunate enough to procure a female. It has likewise been found in the southern provinces of that empire, by Dr. Langsdorff.

Its total length is about seven inches; the whole plumage, with the exception of the snowy bands on the wings, is intensely black: the white spot on the back is only seen when the feathers are raised: the irides, in the live bird, are of a beautiful crimson.

My friend M. Lesson, conjectures truly in thinking, that the birds placed by M. Temminck in our genus Drymophila, have no connexion or analogy with those species we have described, or with the characters on which we originally founded the group: they belong, in short, to a different family.