The avifauna of Trinidad and Tobago

This paper deals with a collection of birds from Trinidad and Tobago brought together by the junior author during a stay on these islands from the end of June 1953 till February 1954. The collection contains 835 specimens belonging to 178 species. About one hundred skins have been collected on Tobago. The collection mainly consists of the smaller species, which is due to the fact that at the time Mees was not in the possession of an adequate shooting gun for the larger species.\nThough much collecting work has already been done on Trinidad the collection contains one new subspecies, Pipra erythrocephala flavissima, jointly described, while it was shown that Tanagra violacea rodwayi is a tenable race. Moreover the Trinidad list is augmented by the following forms not previously recorded: Muscivora tyrannus monachus, Myiarchus swainsoni swainsoni, Elaenia parvirostris, Atticora cyanoleuca patagonica, Sporophila schistacea. Dendroica striata and Nuttalornis borealis only had been touched on by the way, but now Mees actually collected specimens. Myiarchus ferox is only known from Tobago, the pretended occurrence on Trinidad depended on confusion with the southern migrant Myiarchus swainsoni. The two species resemble each other so closely that the one can easily be taken for the other. The same confusion certainly has occurred between Sporophila schistacea and Sporophila intermedia.\nThough much has been written on the birds of Trinidad, nearly all publications are mainly faunal lists on the collected birds, mostly without giving the measurements of the individual specimens. Mees during his stay badly felt the need of a guide to the birds, which, however, is still lacking. Contacting the local field naturalists it appeared that they too felt uneasy about this