638 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 221 



of the Platte, we met with this very interesting species of Fringilla." Town- 

 send (Narrative of a journey across the Rocky Mountains, p. 57, 1839) says: 

 "On the morning of the 24th of May we forded the Platte river, or rather 

 its south fork, along which we had been travelling during the previous week," 

 and (p. 58) on May 25, "we made a noon camp ... on the north branch 

 or fork of the river, and in the afternoon travelled along the bank of the 

 stream." 



Study of Townsend's account shows that it was indeed the south fork that 

 was crossed by the travellers, since from May 18, when the Platte was first 

 seen in the vicinity of Grand Island, the party had constantly moved along 

 the southern bank of, first the Platte proper, and then of its southern fork. 

 Since they crossed the southern fork in the morning of May 24 and, moving 

 northwestward on horseback, were able to reach the southern shore of the 

 northern fork at noon of the following day, the type locality of Fringilla 

 bicolor Townsend might well be restricted to the western part of Keith 

 County, Nebraska. 



Audubon (loc. cit.) quotes Townsend as saying: "I never observed this 

 bird to the west of the Black Hills." The "Black Hills" of Townsend are a 

 "range of high and stony mountains" not farther than one day's ride along 

 the North Platte from its confluence with the Laramie, therefore in Goshen 

 County and/or Platte County, Wyoming. 



Two more cotypes with similar data, No. 22951, a male, and No. 22953, a 

 female, are preserved in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia. 



Genus MYOSPIZA Ridgway 



Myospiza humeralis pallidula Wetmore 



Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington 62: 161, Aug. 23, 1949. 



370276. Adult male. Maicao, Commissary of La Guajira, Colombia. 

 April 14, 1941. Collected by Alexander Wetmore and Melbourne A. 

 Carriker, Jr. Original number 11385. 

 [Coturiiiculus raanimbe] var. dorsalis Ridgway 



in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American birds 1 : 549, 

 January 1874. 



=^Myospiza humeralis xanthornus (Darwin). See Hellmayr, Catalogue 

 of birds of the Americas 11: 480, 1938. 



21030. Adult male. Uruguay. September 1860. Collected by Christo- 

 pher D. Wood? Original number 109. Second U.S. Survey of the Rio 

 Parana (1859-1860). 



25261. Adult (sex not indicated). Buenos Aires, Province of Buenos 

 Aires, Argentina. September-October 1837. Collected by John K. 

 Townsend. Original number 337. Received from the National Insti- 

 tute, Washington. 



