94 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The most aberrant of the South American specimens before me is an 

 example from Sta. Catarina, S. E. Brazil (Mus. Salvin and Godman). 

 This has the upper plumage much as in the specimen last described, 

 but the outer webs of the scapulars are bright buff, instead of white, 

 and the pileum is suffused with blackish, the streaks of this color 

 being thus rendered less distinct. It is the lower parts, however, which 

 differ most: there is an entire absence of the usual sharply-defined, 

 transverse, blackish markings, but in their stead exceedingly irregular 

 and ragged markings of rusty rufous, into which the very obvious but 

 ill-deflued broad mesial streaks gradually blend ; the whole pectoral 

 region, the throat, and the face have a uniform rusty-buff ground-color, 

 relieved by few markings. This individual apparently approaches the 

 form named by Sclater S. ustus. 



Besides the above variations, there is another, involving the intensity 

 of the buff on the basal portion of the feathers of the lower parts ; in 

 many, this is so bright as to show conspicuously wherever the feathers 

 are the least bit disarranged, while in others only the merest trace of it 

 can be discovered by careful search. Between all these variations, 

 however, there is every possible iutermediate condition in different 

 individuals. 



Mr. Sharpe {I. o.) remarks that this race does not assume the bright 

 rufous phase so common in the form named guatemalce. I have seen, 

 however, a specimen from Bahia, an adult female, which is as brightly 

 rufous as any specimen of guatemalce^ or, for that matter, even S. asio. 

 The upper parts are deep brick-rufous, all the feathers with blackish 

 shalt-streaks, these broadest on the pileum and back ; the upper tail- 

 coverts and the sides of the neck only are without these streaks. The 

 outer webs of the exterior row of scapulars are pure white; the feathers 

 of the dorsal region show fulvous transverse spots on the basal portion, 

 mostly concealed, except where the feathers are disturbed, and larger 

 across the nape than elsewhere. Each feather of the sides, flanks, and 

 abdomen has a mesial streak of blackish-brown (with here and there a 

 slight external suffusion of paler and more rusty-brown), which color 

 expands into two rather wide, transverse, externally pointed spots on 

 the basal half of the feather, — the terminal half having two or three 

 narrow, finely zigzag, transverse lines of dark brown, here and there 

 mixed with rufous, — making an average number of four bars on each 

 feather, of which the two anterior are wider and more rufous. 



This specimen resembles the rufous phase of " cassinV^ xery much 

 more than that of " guatemalw '', but is very much larger in all its 

 dimensions. 



A young bird, from Costa Eica, in the collection of Messrs. Salvin 

 and Godman, differs from the adult as follows : ground-color light- 

 buff, deepest above, relieved by narrow transverse bars of dusky, 

 equally distinct above and below. 



