Nelson North American Mainland Myiarchus. 35 



General Notes. In "The Auk" for October, 1892, p. 394, was recorded 

 the supposed occurrence in Arizona of Myiarchus nuttingi based upon 

 three specimens, all females, in the Biological Survey collection one 

 from Rillito Creek, near Tucson, one from Oracle, and another from 

 Prescott. After a detailed study of the large series of MyiarcJius cine 

 rascens and its near relatives in the Biological Survey and National 

 Museum collections, it has become evident that all the supposed speci 

 mens of M. nuttingi from the United States are really females of cine 

 rascens. The error in identification arose from the previously unknown 

 fact that a considerable percentage of the females of cinerascens have the 

 dusky area restricted at the tips of the inner webs of the outer tail 

 feathers, sometimes being almost entirely absent and thus producing the. 

 exact tail pattern of nuttingi. 



Myiarc7ius nuttingi is a much smaller species than cinerascens and is 

 represented in the National Museum collection by the type only. There 

 are two specimens in the Biological Survey collection, one from Nenton, 

 Guatemala, and one from Ocozucuautla, Chiapas, the latter probably the 

 most northerly actual record for the species. The broad area lying be 

 tween the breeding range of M. cinerascens and that of M. nuttingi is 

 occupied as shown below by M. nuttingi inquietus (Salvin and Godman). 



I have carefully measured a series of M. cinerascens from the type 

 region in western Texas, another from southern Arizona, another from 

 northern California and Oregon, and still another of winter migrants 

 from southern Mexico and northern Guatemala and the averages show 

 close uniformity in size throughout its range, The size, when compari 

 son is made between specimens of the same sex, is so much greater in 

 cinerascens that the species may be at once distinguished from nuttingi by 

 this character alone. 



The identification of specimens of cinerascens as nuttingi was due to 

 the almost precise similarity of the patterns of color on the outer 

 tail feathers between these specimens and the type of nuttingi. On ex 

 amination of the series of cinerascens at hand I find that among 113 

 males there is not a single specimen that lacks a definite dusky tip to 

 the outer tail feather, although sometimes reduced to a narrow dusky 

 border. On the other hand among 60 specimens of females, 15 of them 

 showed a marked reduction of the dusky at tip of inner web'of outer 

 tail feather and a corresponding extension of the rufous. Several of 

 these, in addition to the three specimens cited from Arizona, have the 

 dusky so reduced on this feather that the rufous covers practically all* 

 of the inner web to the tip as in nuttingi. These were taken on the 

 Santa Cruz River west of the Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, at Owens 

 lake, Inyo County, and Mountain Spring, San Diego County, California, 

 Alpine, mouth of Nueces River and Boquillas, Texas. Others with the 

 dusky much reduced and forming merely a slender wedge-shaped line 

 next the vane on the terminal part of the feather were taken at Baird, 

 California, Santa Cruz River, Arizona, and a winter spe'cimen at 

 Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. Every gradation is shown in this series be 

 tween the pattern on the outer tail feather of typical cinerascens and 



