103 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



sents much greater and more complicated variations than does 

 that of the male birds. Fourteen of them have the lower parts 

 posterior to the breast-patch more or less ochraceous (the ground 

 color varying from buff to rufous), and everywhere, except on the 

 crissum, heavily barred with darker rusty and blackish-brown ; 

 the prevailing form of these bars varies with the individual; in 

 all but one, their direction is decidedly transverse, but as a rule 

 they are neither sharply defined nor regular ; on the tibia? they 

 are narrower, fainter, and more decidedly rufous ; on the upper 

 part of the abdomen they are more or less modified in shape by 

 an increased breadth along the shafts of the feathers, sometimes 

 running: together, and then forming a median chain of diamond- 

 shaped spots, which are usually more blackish than the other 

 markings. Some specimens have these diamond-shaped spots, 

 the characteristic pictura of the lower parts, in wdiich case the 

 transverse bars are indistinct, if not obsolete, but the strong 

 transverse barring is the rule. In the darker of these specimens 

 there is a gradual transition between the uniform brown of the 

 jugulum to the broken tint of the lower breast; and in these 

 specimens the white of the throat is more or less streaked with 

 dark brown. In nine of the fourteen specimens, however, the 

 dark grayish umber jugular area is abruptly defined, with a firm 

 semicircular outline, against the immediately lighter region pos- 

 terior to it, while the throat of these specimens is plain white, in 

 the form of a well-defined patch. The remaining five specimens dif- 

 fer decidedly from the series above described. Four of them agree 

 in having the lower parts posterior to the breast-patch almost free 

 from markings. The color of these parts is alike in all, and is a 

 creamy white (less pure than in the very light-colored males), witli 

 the tibiae, especially their inner sides, more strongly ochraceous. 

 One of them is so nearly immaculate, that a dozen or so minute 

 hastate specks of brown scattered over the upper portion of the 

 abdomen constitute all the variegation of the lower surface. The 

 most heavily spotted one has large transverse spots along the sides, 

 and more irregular, even some longitudinal, ones along the middle 

 portion of the lower bi'east. This example differs from the others in 

 having the brown of the jugular patch broken up by a conspicuous 

 spotting of ochraceous-white, this most distinct along the median 

 line. No. 1,271 (Mrs. C. E. Aiken), El Paso, Colorado, May 6, is 

 almost exactly similar. The remaining specimen is a very remark- 



