BREWSTER : BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFOKNIA. 65 



not skin a bird for more than a month. That accounted mostly for the frag- 

 ments of some water birds I sent to the Smithsonian." 



The Pacific Godwit breeds abundantly in ALiska, where it was first found 

 by Dall, and afterwards by Elliott, Xelson, and Turner. Mr. Nelson in his 

 Report upon Natural History Collections made in Alaska between the years 

 1877 and 1881 (pp. 115, 116), gives a good account of its habits, changes of 

 plumage, etc. The members of this Alaska colony are supposed to cross the 

 Pacific Ocean during migration, and to winter, in company with the birds of 

 the same species which breed in the northern portions of eastern Asia, in the 

 islands of the Malay Archipelago, Australia, the New Hebrides, Norfolk Island, 

 and New Zealand. 



Totanus melanoleucus frazari, subsp. nov.i 



Gray Yellow-legs. 



Totanus melanoleucus (not Scohpax melanojeucus Gmelin) Ridgwat, Proc. U. S. 

 Nat. Mas., V. 1883, 534, footnote (San Jose; Cape St. Lucas). Belding, 

 Ibid., VL 1883, 351 (s. of lat. 24° 30'). Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d 

 ser., II. 1889, 273 (n. of La Paz). 



Subspecific characters: — Slightly larger than T. melanoleucus; the bill somewhat 

 slenderer, the general coloring much grayer, the wliite streaks of the nape and top 

 of head broader ; the dark streaks of the juguluni, breast and sides of neck and 

 the dark bars on the sides of the body fewer, finer and fainter; the sides of the 

 he.id whiter, with less dark mottling. 



Winter plumage : — Male (No. 17,815, collection of William Brewster, San Jose del 

 Cabo, Lower California, October 27, 1887 ; M. Abbott Frazar). Above light ashy 

 gray, tiie feathers of the back bordered with ashy white ; those of the scapulars 

 and wing coverts notched on both webs with brownish white ; upper tail coverts 

 white with a few dark bars; primaries dark slaty, lighter, and witli more or less 

 grayish mottling on the inner webs of most of the feathers ; tail white, all the 

 feathers barred with dusky; the middle feathers grayish with obscure dusky bars; 

 under parts pure white, the jugulum, fore part of breast and sides of neck finely 

 streaked with obscure dusky ; sides irregularly marked with grayish and dusky ; 

 under wing coverts and axillars white with obscure V shaped markings of dull 

 slaty; under tail coverts pure white, with a few narrow dark bars; sides of head 

 white with fine, sparse species of dusky everywhere, excepting over a space extend- 

 ing from above the eye to the base of tiie culmen, where the wliite is immaculate ; 

 a nearly solid patch of dusky on the anterior portion of the lores. Wing, 6.95; 

 tarsus, 2.30 ; length of bill from nostril, 1.86 ; depth at nostril, .25. 



The bird above described, like all of my twenty or more additional speci- 

 mens which unmistakably belong to the same race, is in winter plumage. 



1 Of the several names which have been bestowed on the Greater Yellow-legs 

 all appear to relate to the eastern bird, except Totanus chilmsis Philippt, Arch. f. 

 Nat., pt. I. 1857, 264 (Chili), which is indeterminable. I have named the new bird 

 for Mr. M. Abbott Frazar. 



VOL. XLI. NO. 1 5 



