Kelson — JS^orth American Mainland 3IyiarcJnis. 35 



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

 the supposed occurrence in Arizona of Mi/iarehiis ni/ttiiigi based upon 

 three specimcMis, all femalos. 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 Myiarchitu cine- 

 i-iiKCcns and its near relatives in the Biological Survey and National 

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

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

 I'dscens. The error in identification arose from the previously unknown 

 fact that a considerable percentage of the females of cinera.v:en/i 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. 



Myiarchiis nuttingi is a much smaller species than c««€rrt«c£'«s 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 31. nuttingi is 

 occupied as shown below by 31. nuttingi inquietus (Salvin and Godman). 



I have carefully measured a series of J/, cinerancens 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 tiuttingi \\&s duQ 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 

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

 border. On the other liand 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 tlae 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 specimen at 

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

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



