68 BULLETIlsr 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Range. — Colder parts of eastern and central Asia and western North 

 America. 



From this genus I exclude Monti fringilla^ Brehm, on account of its 

 even tail, with broad-ended rectrices, and Frhigillauda'^ Hodgson, by 

 reason of its longer tarsus (decidedly more, instead of less, than one- 

 fifth as long as wing), both genera being also ver}' different from Len- 

 Gosticte in their style of coloration. Both are exclusively Palffiarctic. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES OF LEUCOSTICTE. 



a. Adults ^ with sides of head at least partly gray, like posterior portion of pileum. 

 h. Larger (wing averaging 118.36 in male, 114.30 in female); coloration darker 

 (chest and upper back deep chestnut-brown). (Islands of Bering Sea, 

 including Commander group, Aleutians, and Shumagins. ) 



Leucosticte tephrocotis griseonucha (p. 72) 



hb. Smaller (wing averaging 106.68 in male, 101.85 in female); coloration lighter 



(chest and upper back cinnamon-brown or light chestnut-brown). (Coast 



district of Alaska, from Kodiak eastward and southward; in winter south to 



Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, east to edge of Great Plains. 



Leucosticte tephrocotis littoralis (p. 71) 



aa. Adults with sides of head brown or dusky, never gray or partly so (except, 



rarely, a spot on lores or beneath eyes). 



b. Lateral (and usually whole posterior) portion of pileum distinctly gray, in 



marked and more or less abrupt contrast with contiguous brown or dusky of 



auricular region and hindueck. 



c. Chest, etc., light chestnut-brown or cinnamon-brown (as in L. t. littoralis). 



(Interior mountain districts of North America, breeding south to southern 



Sierra Nevada, above timber line; in winter to Utah, Colorado, and 



Nebraska. ) Leucosticte tephrocotis tephrocotis (p. 68) 



cc. Chest, etc. , brownish black ( male ) or dusky slate-brownish ( female ) . ( Moun- 

 tains of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. ) . . .Leucosticte atrata (p. 75) 

 hb. Lateral and posterior portions of pileum not distinctly gray, the color not 

 sharply contrasted with contiguous brown of auricular region and hindneck. 

 (Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. ) Leucosticte australis (p. 77) 



LEUCOSTICTE TEPHROCOTIS TEPHROCOTIS Swainson. 

 GRAY-CROWNED LETICOSTICTE. 



Tarsus not more than 20.83, usually less; whole side of head, below 

 eyes, brown. 



Adult male in summer. — Forehead and part of crown black; nasal 

 tufts grayish white; sides of crown (from above eyes backward) and 

 whole of occiput plain light ash gray, very strongly contrasted with 

 the contiguous brown color of the auriculars and hindneck;* whole side 



^ MontifringiUa Brehm, Isis, 1828, 1277. (Type, Fringilla nivalis Linnteus. ) 



'^ Fringillauda Hodgson, in Gray's Zool. Misc., 1844, 84. (Type, F. nemoricola 

 Hodgson. ) 



^The young are not sufficiently well known to permit their introduction into the 

 key. I have seen only those of L. tephrocotis grisconucha and L. australis. 



■*In very much worn midsummer specimens, the black of the crown sometimes 

 runs backward to the brown of the hindneck, thus throwing the gray into two lateral 

 patches, which in some midsummer females are more indistinct. This, however, is 

 not a variation of the pattern, but the result of wearing away of the gray tips to the 

 feathers. 



