118 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPAEATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



My specimens from the Cape Region differ rather constantly from those 

 from western Mexico and the United States in having longer as well as usually 

 stouter bills. They are also almost invariably grayer above, especially on the 

 crown and nape, and less yellowish on the abdomen, crissum, under tail 

 coverts, and flanks. The grayish on the nape is often so pronounced as to 

 form an obscure but noticeable band or collar. In autumnal plumage the 

 abdomen, flanks, crissum, and under tail coverts are primrose yellow, the back 

 faintly tinged with olive, the light edging of the secondaries and wing coverts 

 slightly olivaceous ; otherwise this plumage does not difi"er materially from 

 that of spring. 



The peculiarities above mentioned seem to me sufficiently pronounced to 

 entitle this bird to subspecific separation from cinerascens. Baird as long ago as 

 1859 remarked the " rather stouter bill " which, he adds, J' appears to be a con- 

 stant character, and may one day cause its [the Lower California bird's] separa- 

 tion as a species. (M. pertinax, Baird)." Hence the form is already supplied 

 with a name under which I have ventured to reinstate it here. 



This Flycatcher is resident in the Cape Region from La Paz southward, 

 but Mr. Frazar saw only a very few at San Jose del Cabo, and none on the 

 Sierra de la Laguna. Its favorite haunts are arid, cactus-grown plains in tlie 

 low country near the coast, but it also frequents thickets, where they are to 

 be found. 



Just how far to the northward on the Peninsula pertinax ranges before merg- 

 ing into or giving place to true cinerascens 1 am unable to state. Mr. Bryant, 

 who does not discriminate between the two forms, says that the Ash-throated 

 Flycatcher is " one of the most generally distributed species found in Lower 

 California." 



Sayornis saya (Bonap.). 



Say's Phoebe. 



Sayornis sayi Beldixg, Proe. U. S. Nat. Mus., V. 1883, 541 (Cape Region). 

 Sayornis saya Bryant, Proc. Calif. Sci., 2d ser., II. 1889, 290 (Cape Region). 



Say's Phoebe occurs in the Cape Region only during winter, and even then 

 it is apparently rare. Mr. Frazar took but three specimens, all at La Paz, in 

 February. The species breeds in the northern portion of the Peninsula, for 

 Mr. Anthony found some nests " in old mines and tunnels at Valladares, fre- 

 quently at a depth of twenty feet in a shaft " (Bryant). In California it is 

 resident as far north as Sebastopol. It ranges northward in summer along 

 the Yukon River to the Arctic Circle, and southward in winter, on the plateau 

 of Mexico, to Puebla and central Vera Cruz.^ 



-"> 



1 A. O. U., Check List, 2J ed., 1895, 185. 



