734 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Paler phase. 



Adults (sexes alike). — General color of upper parts snuff brown to 

 cinnamon-brown, darker anteriorly, paler posteriorly, the whole 

 surface (except, sometimes, the pileum) freckled or vermiculated 

 with darker; anterior portion of forehead, long ear-tufts, and a super- 

 ciliary stripe connecting the two, white or buffy white, the outer webs 

 of ear-tuft feathers more or less freckled with brown or dusky; 

 exterior scapulars "wdth irregular, usually large, blotches of white or 

 buffy white on outer webs, and distal middle and greater wing- 

 coverts with large terminal spots of the same, at least on outer web ; 

 outer webs of rectrices and proximal secondaries without distinct 

 (if any) bands, but distal secondaries with more or less distinct bands 

 of dull brownish buff, light tawny-ochraceous, or cinnamon-buff; 

 outer webs of primaries with large transverse spots (touching shafts) 

 of dull buff or cinnamon-buff, these becoming paler buffy distally ; 

 inner webs of rectrices with distinct bands of dull buff or cinnamon- 

 buff, these becoming narrower and less distinct toward tip of tail; 

 bristly loral feathers dull white (sometimes tinged or suffused with 

 rusty) wdth conspicuously black shafts; feathers immediately sur- 

 rounding eye black; suborbital region and anterior portion of auric- 

 ular region deep tawny or rufescent tawny, the lateral half or more 

 of the latter brownish black or dusky or else much darker rusty 

 brown than anterior portion; under parts a mixture of white (passing 

 into buffy posteriorly) and pale buffy brown, nearly everywhere 

 irregularly vermiculated with dusky, the pencilings finer and 

 denser anteriorly, coarser and farther apart posteriorly, the anal region 

 and under tail-coverts immaculate light buffy or else the latter with 

 only a few irregular bars of brown or dusky ; under wing-coverts deep 

 buff or ochraceous-buff, more or less barred or otherwise marked 

 with dark brown or dusky toward edge of wing; under surface of 

 remiges grayish brown crossed by very distinct bands of deep buff, 

 these becoming indistinct distally ; bill dull light yellowish with tomial 

 half (approximately) of both maxilla and mandible horn color or 

 dusky; iris yellow; naked toes pale brownish (in dried skins). 



Dark phase.^ 



Adultsisezes alike). — More or less conspicuously darker than the light 

 phase, the general color of upper parts varying from Vandyke brown to 

 sooty brown, passing into uniform dark sooty brown or sooty black on 

 hindneck and pileum; face mostly sooty black, there being only a 

 relatively small space of rusty brown on suborbital region alone; 



a Possibly a subspecies, peculiar to the Atlantic coast district, from Vera Cruz, 

 Mexico, to eastern Costa Rica, since all specimens seen by me are from that geographic 

 area, while the lighter colored ones are mainly, if not entirely, from the Pacific side 

 (Chiapas, Mexico, to Panama). 



