Vol. XXIV, pp. 43-44 February 24, 1911 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW DRYONASTES FROM CHINA. 



BY J. H. RILEV. 



[By permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.] 



Iii a small lot of birds collected by Arthur de C. Sowerby in 

 the provinces of Shansi and Shensi, China, there is a single 

 specimen resembling Dryonastes perspicillatus but paler through- 

 out and in my opinion represents a recognizable geographical 

 race. It may be known from the following description: 



Dryonastes perspicillatus shensiensis subsp. now 



Type, No. 212,0(17, Collection of the U. S. National Museum. Adult 

 male. Fifteen miles south of Si-an-fu, Shensi, China, 1,500 feet altitude, 

 February 28, 1909. Collected by Arthur de C. Sowerby. 



Subsperific character*. — Similar to Dryonastes p. perspicillatus G-melin 

 of south and south-east China, but much paler both above and below and 

 with the feathers of the throat and neck with a mere indication of a dark 

 shaft-streak. 



Description. — Forehead, supra-orbital, lores, and auriculars, black, 

 forming a mask; crown, cervix, anil occiput smoke gray, deepening into 

 brownish on the upper back, all the feathers with very narrow edgings 

 and indistinct shaft-streaks of hair brown; back and rump broccoli 

 brown; upper tail-coverts Isabella color; throat, jugulum, and sides of 

 neck, smoke gray, the feathers of the throat and jugulum with hardly 

 perceptihle dusky shaft-streaks; breast, abdomen, and wing-lining, pink- 

 ish buff; thighs buff; crissum ochraceous ; carpo-metacarpal bordered 

 with clove brown; wings externally color of the back; the primaries and 

 secondaries blackish on the inner well and then edged with huffy towards 

 the base of the feathers; tail wood brown, all the feathers broadly tipped 

 with black, except the middle pair, the black increasing towards the outer 

 pair where it occupies about half the feather and extends some distance 

 up the outer wel). Wing, 134; tail, loo; culmen, 25.5; tarsus, 41.5; 

 middle toe, 25.5 mm. 



12— PROC. BIOL. Sue. Wash., Vol. XXIV. 1911. (43) 



