634 BULLETIN 5 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



marked; under wing coverts usually white with a few tear-shaped 

 chaetura drab spots; iris dark brown; eyelid pale flesh; cere light 

 yellow; bill pale yellowish gray, more yellowish at base, and dusky 

 at the tip; tarsi and toes light yellowish gray, claws pale horn color, 



b. Plain-tailed variety: Similar to the preceding, but with the 

 tail unmarked white, the remiges unbarred, but with chaetura drab 

 shaft stripes broadening into a wide apical dark area as in the barred 

 variety; scapulars, interscapulars, upper wing and tail coverts, back, 

 and rump unbarred, but with broad terminally spatulate shaft stripes 

 of chaetura drab ; underparts as in the barred variety.^- 



Adult (sexes alike). — Gray phase: Entire upper parts of head, 

 body, wings, and tail deep neutral gray with or without a dark sepia 

 tinge, the head with darker gray shaft stripes and often with whitish 

 margins to the feathers, producing a white-streaked appearance, in 

 other cases with no white edges; scapulars, interscapulars, back, 

 rump, upper wing and tail coverts with dark shafts and edged nar- 

 rovvdy with grayish white to pale bufry white and barred with the 

 same, the light bars widely spaced and variable in their extent, some 

 being reduced to m.ere spots on the two webs of individual feathers; 

 remiges dark sepia with a grayish wash, the primaries indistinctly 

 barred or mottled with grajdsh white on the outer webs and crossed 

 by 15 or more broad white bars on the inner webs, the dark, narrower 

 interspaces becoming incomplete dark bars not always quite reaching 

 the margin of the w^eb, but confluent along the shaft; the second 

 primary from the outside the longest, then the third, first, and fourth; 

 the primaries with a long terminal unbarred sepia area on both webs, 

 narrowly tipped with whitish, secondaries incompletely barred with 

 pale grayish to bufty white on both webs, the pale bars not always 

 reaching the shaft; rectrices crossed by 10-12 whitish or grayish 

 bands about equal in width to the dark interspaces, the pale bands 

 frecided with slate gray to grayish sepia; rectrices tipped with white; 

 lores, cheeks, and auriculars whitish, with a creamy wash in some 

 cases, the feathers with chaetura drab shaft streaks of variable width; 

 in some cases a pronounced malar stripe results from the widening 



32 While these two varieties are well marked in series, individual birds may 

 somewhat combine the characters of the two. Thus, I have seen specimens with 

 some bars on the rectrices, but only longitudinal streaks on the back and upper 

 wing coverts, and others with some bars on the upperparts and few or none on the 

 tail. Every character breaks down in a long series, but the two general types do 

 stand out fairly well. Hartert (Vog. pal. Fauna, ii, 1913, 1065) has suggested that 

 the barred-tail, barred-back birds are the older adults, but this is not necessarily 

 the case. I have seen ju venal birds, taken from the nest, of both the barred and 

 the unbarred varieties, which were very similar to adult birds except for the 

 color of the bill and feet. I have also seen plain-tailed young moulting into 

 barred-tailed plumage. 



