/ 



bangs: birds from the cayman islands. 315 



is absolutely identical with the Bahama bird. All the Cayman 

 examples are in the yellow phase of plumage. They correspond 

 exactly with yellow specimens from the Bahamas from Inagua to 

 New Providence, the type locality of V. crassirostris. The three 

 characters that Ridgway in his Birds of North and Middle America 

 thought might distinguish V. alleni, all prove illusive. The browner 

 back in the specimens he examined was due entirely to discoloration 

 from the now famous chemical preservative used by Maynard; the 

 outermost primary is not smaller; and the pale wing-bands are not 

 broader. 



Todd (Annals Carnegie mus., 1911, 7, p. 428^30) has discussed at 

 length the color-phases of V. crassirostris, and I wholly agree with him 

 that the gray and the yellow (the so-called Vireo crassirostris fiavescens 

 Ridg.) specimens, represent nothing but extremes of color-variation 

 in one and the same subspecies. 



Examples from the different islands of the Caymans are all quite 

 alike. 



Mniotiltidae. 

 Dendroica petechia petechia (Linne). 



Dendroica auricapilla Ridg., Proc. U. S. N. M., Aug. 1888, 10, p. 572, 

 Grand Cayman. 



Thirteen specimens, both sexes, adults and two young. Grand Cay- 

 man, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brae, April, May, and July. 



This series together with four skins from the Cajnnans already in 

 the M. C. Z. I have compared most carefully with a fine set of 

 Jamaican speciniens, with the result that I find no way in which to 

 separate them. Ridgway in his Birds of North and Middle America 

 recognizes auricapilla as differing from petechia on the grounds of 

 "decidedly shorter wing and larger bill and feet." His own measure- 

 ments, however, which followed, show very trifling differences. My 

 measurements of eight adult males from the Caymans, the wing is : — 

 62-65, (63.81); exposed culmen, 10-11.5 (10.62). In eight adult 

 males from Jamaica, the wing is: — 62-67 (64.5); exposed culmen, 

 10-11 (10.68). I can see no differences at all in the feet. 



There are no differences in specimens from the three islands of the 

 Caymans. 



Dendroica petechia petechia can be separated from D. p. gundlachi 

 Baird of Cuba by slightly paler colors and more extensively ochraceous 

 €rown. 



