NO. 1116. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



487 



with ciunamon-buff, paler at tips 5 primaries, primary coverts, and 

 aluliP edged witli dull whitish. Tail as in adult. Under parts dull 

 white, the chest marked with distinct blackish spots (larger and more 

 round centrally, smaller and more angular or sagittate laterally) ; sides 

 and flanks broadly streaked with dusky grayish. An indistinct super- 

 ciliary stripe of grayish white; lores and suborbital region dusky mixed 

 with grayish: ear coverts dusky grayish, paler centrally, the feathers 

 with dull whitish shaft streaks. 



This very distinct species, while about the size of K. melanotis, clearly 

 belongs to the same group as N. trifasclatm and X. maedonaldi, having 

 the same brownish gray band across the chest and broken belt of dusky 

 spots across the lower breast. The ear-c^overts are more extensively 

 and solidly black than in the larger species, nearly as much so as in 

 N. melanotis, which perhaps has caused it to be referred to the latter. 

 The white tips to the outer rectrices are much more extensive and 

 more abruptly defined than in j\". macdonalfli, being very much as in 

 K. meJduotifi. 



Compared with IG specimens of N. melanotis from James Island, the 

 11 adults of the present species from Chatham Island differ in the 

 much lighter color of the pileum, the ground color of which is brownish 

 gray relieved by mesial streaks of blackish, which never, at any sea- 

 sou, equal the gray in extent; the feathers of the dorsal region are 

 much more broadly edged with gray, and the lower parts are markedly 

 different, as described above. 



The young of N. adamsi may at once be distinguished from that of 

 N, melanotis by its much paler coloration above, and much more dis- 

 tinctly as well as extensively cinnamomeous rump, the entire pileum 

 of the young N. melanotis (of which two are before me) being nearly 

 uniform sooty blackish, whereas the young N. adamsi described above 

 is the darkest crowned of five examples. 



The failure of previous authors to distinguish this species from N, 

 melanotis is doubtless due to the circumstance that their specimens 

 were in such badly worn plumage that the differential characters were 

 not apparent; certainly this was the case with those examined by Pro- 

 fessor Sundevall, and also with the series collected by Mi*. Townsend. 

 Dr. Habel, whose collection formed the basis of Mr. Salvin's mono- 

 graph, did not obtain it. 



Measurements of Nesomimns adamsi. 



