458 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Adult female.— Wing 417-448 (434) ; tail 331-347 (339) ; culmen from 

 cere 32-38.4 (34.5) ; tarsus 140-149 (145.5) ; middle toe without claw 

 71-75.9 (73.5 mm.).^^ 



Range. — Resident in "the Transition and Lower Canadian Zone of 

 the western slope of the Sierra Madre of northwestern Mexico (Sonora 

 (Barromicon; San Jose), western Chihuahua, Durango) at an altitude 

 of approximately 8,500 feet to 4,000 feet, descending still lower in the 

 autumn, as it is known to feed on the cornfields of the Indians as low 

 as about 2,500 feet." 



Type locality. — Two miles southeast of Guayachi, Chihuahua, 20 miles 

 northeast of junction of Rios Chinipas and Fuerte, western slope of Sierra 

 Madre (altitude about 6,400 feet). 



Meleagris gallopavo merriami (not of Sennett) Peters, Check-list Birds of World, 



ii, 1934, 140, part (n. Sonora). — Hellmayr and Conover, Cat. Birds Amer., 



i, No. 1, 1942, 293, part (n. Sonora). 

 Meleagris gallopavo subsp. ? Moore, Condor, xl, 1938, 24 (near Barromicon, se. 



Sonora). 

 Meleagris gallopavo onusta Moore, Auk, Iv, 1938, 112 (orig. descr. ; e. of Guayachi, 



Chihuahua; crit. ; distr.). — Mosby and Handley, Wild Turkey in Virginia, 1943, 



4 (distr.). 



Genus AGRIOCHARIS Chapman 



Agriocharis Chapman, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., viii, 1896, 288. (Type, by 



original description, Meleagris occllata Cuvier.) 

 Eumelcagris Coues, Key North Amer. Birds, ed. 5, ii, 1903, 727. (Type, by monotypy, 



Meleagris occllata Cuvier.) 



Large gallinaceous birds (length about 83.5-102 cm.) closely resembling 

 Meleagris ^^ but differing in the absence of a jugular beard and presence, 

 in adult male, of an erect protuberance or subcylindrical knob on crown, 

 decidedly more strongly rounded tail, and more brilliantly metallic colora- 

 tion. Bill rather elongated and narrow (the culinen about equal to distance 

 from its base to rictus), its depth at base of culmen slightly less than its 

 width at same point ; nostril longitudinal, elliptical, in anterior portion 

 of the rather long nasal fossa ; head and upper neck nude, with scattered 

 wartlike excrescences, the adult male with a flexible elongated appendage 

 on anterior portion of forehead (as in Meleagris) and a vertical, sub- 

 cylindrical knob or protuberance on posterior portion of crown, this 

 permanently erect and much thicker than the frontal appendage; wing 

 moderate, moderately concave beneath, the longest primaries slightly but 



^ Four specimens including this type. 



■™ Agriocharis is, in fact, so closely related to Meleagris that I am somewhat 

 doubtful as to the expediency of recognizing it as a genus. One of the alleged char- 

 acters certainly does not hold good, namely, the long and very sharp tarsal spur, 

 a precisely similar spur often occurring in Meleagris gallopavo osceola; in fact, in 

 an adult male Agriocharis ocellata now before me, the spur on one leg is only 

 moderately long and very blunt, while that on the other leg is a very small obtuse 

 cone — in fact is rudimentary! (R.R.) 



