This specimen may possilily indicate a mere individual variation, rather 

 than a progi'essive stage of plumage. 



A male (25,198, "Washington, D. C, February) is as strongly barred be- 

 neath as described in tlie female ; thus it would appear that any differences 

 in plumage in the sexes are nothing more tlian individual discrepancies. 



The yellowish outer webs of the primaries constitute a feature which wiU 

 serve to distinguish the young of the JJntco lineatus from that of every 

 other North American species. 



A series of twelve specimens from Florida, in the ^Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology, at Cambridge, shows that the birds of this species from that 

 peninsula are very much smaller than nortliern ones ; and tliough that of 

 the adults does not differ api)i-eciably, the plumage of the young birds is 

 considerably darker than in northern specimens, and occasionally approaches 

 quite nearly to that of the young of var. degans, the markings on the lower 

 parts, including the tibiae, being often in the form of transverse spots. 



The extreme measurements of this series are as follows: Wing, 10.90- 

 12.75; tail, 7.70-8.50; culmen, .80 -.90; tar.sus, 2.90-3.20; middle toe, 

 1.25 - 1.45. Specimens, 12. 



Var. elesnns, Cassin. 

 BED-BELLIED HAWK. 



/ ciA- 



BxiUo elegans, Cass. P. A. N. S. 1855, 281. — Ib. B. N. Am. 1858, 28, plate. — Heerm. 

 P. R. Rep. II, 32. — Kexxerly, P. R. Rep. Ill, 19. — Nf.wb. VII, 75. — Coop. & 

 SucKL. XII, ii, 147. — Stkickl. Oni. Syn. I, 38. — ? Duessek, Ibis, 1865, 325 

 (Texas). — Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 9 (Arizona). — Gkay, Hand List, I, 7. — Cooper, 

 Birds Cal. 1870, 477. 



Sp. Char. AduH male (10,573, Ft. Tejon, California, "Oct. 22, 1857"; J. Xantus). 

 Head, neck, interscapulars, anterior scapulars, lesser wing-coverts, lining of the wing, 

 and entire lower parts, dark lateritious-rufous, inclining to chestnut on the shoulders. 

 The upper parts so colored have each feathers with a medial-ovate space of dull black, 

 giving a striped appearance; the lesser wing-coverts, however, have each only a narrow 

 shaft-line of black, these growing larger as they approach the middle coverts. There is a 

 .strong black suffu.sion over the cheeks, forming an obscure "mustache"; orbit blackish, 

 throat streaked with- the same. The dark lateritious-rufous of the jugulum and breast is 

 perfectly continuous and uniform, varied only by the obsoletely darker sliafts of the 

 feathers; .sides and flanks transverselj' barred with white; lining of the wing, and tibiae, 

 with very ill-defined bars of paler rufous; anal region and lower tail-covcrts with broader 

 and more sharply defined bars of the same. Scapulars and middle wing-coverts brownish- 

 black, narrowly tipped, and irregularly spotted transversely, with pure white; secondaries 



