BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 659 



intermixed with a few irregular spots or blotches of deep buff or light 

 ochraceous ; outer webs of secondaries and proximal primaries crossed 

 by indistinct (sometimes obsolete) bands of lighter sooty brown, more 

 or less mottled, those of distal primaries with distinct large spots of 

 deep buff or ochraceous, more or less mottled with darker, these 

 indistinct on distal half or more, obsolete terminally, sometimes 

 wanting altogether on one or two outermost primaries; tail crossed 

 by a variable number (about four to seven) narrow, interrupted bands 

 of pale buff to ochraceous, these usually mottled centrally with dark 

 sooty brown, sometimes forming a nearly uniform dusky bar between 

 two narrower buff or ochraceous ones; ear-tufts uniform sooty 

 black for greater part ; orbital region, superciliary region, and lores 

 sooty black, the latter more or less intermixed beneath smface 

 (basally) with pale dull grayish buffy; blackish orbital space bor- 

 dered posteriorly and below by a semicircular band (broadest below) 

 of dull grayish buffy to buffy grayish white (the two of opposite sides 

 connected on chin), this bordered posteriorly by a semicircular band 

 of uniform sooty black; facial rim sooty black or dark sooty brown, 

 speckled with buff; across middle of throat a band of sooty black or 

 dark sooty brown (confluent with the uniform blackish band on ter- 

 minal portion of auricular region) spotted, barred, or streaked with 

 buffy; chest dull buffy wliite to pale buff, with large longitudinal 

 spots of uniform dark sooty brown; rest of under parts more strongly 

 buffy (sometimes deep ochraceous-buff ) , w^ith more or less of white on 

 distal portion of feathers of sides and flanks, and with irregular broad 

 stripes of dark sooty brown, these (except sometimes on breast) 

 throwing off two or more lateral bars of the same color, thus produc- 

 ing a more or less distinct *' herring-bone" pattern; long tibial plumes 

 streaked mesiaUy with dark sooty brown; legs buff or ochraceous- 

 buff, sometimes immaculate, sometimes more or less mottled or 

 flecked with dusky; under tail-coverts streaked mesially with dark 

 sooty brown, sometimes also barred (more or less broadly) with the 

 same; under wing-coverts irregularly spotted or blotched with dark 

 sooty brown and buff or ochraceous, the former mostly on outer por- 

 tion, where sometimes greatly predominating ; under primary coverts 

 uniform dark grayish brown with a large basal area of buff or buffy 

 white; imder surface of primaries dark grayish brown distally, paler 

 proximally, where broken by large irregular spots or blotches of buffy; 

 bill dark horn color with paler tip, or wholly blackish ; naked toes horn 

 color or dusky (in dried skins). 



