On the Genus "Chamaethlypis" and Its Supposed Relationship to Icteria

Abstract

An Erroneous Report for $ula dactylatra melanops.--Inview of the wide distribution of the National Geographic Magazine it is desirable for the benefit of ornithologists to note a correction in the identification f a photograph of a group of boobies printed in the number for November 1959, p. 688.Through a misunderstanding on the part of one of the staff's advisers, what is obviously a group of Redfooted Boobies, Sula sula rubripes, on their nests built in the tops of low mangroves on the Cosmoledo Islands north of Madagascar, was labelled Masked Booby, Sula dactylatra melanops.The latter species places its eggs on the sand in low islands or on bare rock ledges in other environments.I noted the error in an early run copy of the magazine, and the presses were stopped to make the correction.This change, however, appeared only in the latter part of the edition.---ALx^)ERWErroR, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. On the Genus "Chamaethlypis" and Its Supposed Relationship to Icteria.--Chamaethlypis is a monotypic Middle American genus of wood-warblers, ranging from southern Texas to western Panama.Several races are recognized, but all are now included in a single species, C. poliocephala, designated Ground-chat in the A.O.U.Check-list of North American Birds (5th ed., 1957), but called Gray-crowned Yellowthroat by Blake (Birds of Mexico, 1953) and many other recent writers.Those who have reported on this bird on the basis of field experience have remarked on its close resemblance, both in appearance and behavior, to the yellowthroats of the genus Geothlypis (see