798 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



sides nearly uniform paler brown; rest of under parts buffy white, 

 broadly streaked, or striped, with, blackish brown or brownish black, 

 except along median line, which is immaculate; longer under tail- 

 coverts with a small, narrow, terminal or subterminal streak of dusky 

 brown; legs pale buffy grayish, suffused with cinnamon-buff, espe- 

 cially on thighs, and very faintly flecked mth darker; under wing- 

 coverts pale cinnamon-buff with a hne of black streaks running par- 

 allel with edge of wing; under surface of remiges banded with pale 

 cinnamon-buff (on secondaries) to buffy white or very pale buff (on 

 primaries), the lighter bands becoming obsolete or indistinct (grayish) 

 on distal portion of longer and outermost primaries; bill grayish horn 

 color, the culmen, tip, and tomia paler and more yellowish; toes Hght 

 brownish (in dried skins); length (skin), 142.5; wing, 86; tail, 57; 

 culmen (from cere), O.*^ 



Eastern Mexico, in State of Puebla (Tochimilco). 



Glaucidium fisheri Nelson and Palmer, Auk, xi, Jan., 1894, 41 (Tochimilco, 



Puebla, e. Mexico; coll. U. S. Nat. Mus.). 

 [Glaucidium] Jisheri Sharpe, Hand-list, i, 1899, 298. 



GLAUCIDIUM BRASILIANUM RIDGWAYI (Sharpe). 



STREAK-CROWNED PYGMY OWL. 



Similar to G. h. hrasilianum of Brazil, etc.,^ but lighter in color and 

 averaging rather smaller. 



a One specimen (the type). 



b True G. hrasilianum occiu"s in Brazil and other parts of South America, but the 

 extent to which the South American representatives of the species should be divided 

 into geographic subspecies I am not prepared to say. The Trinidad bird {G. hra- 

 silianum phalxnoides) seems to be a fairly well-marked form, however. The Central 

 American form (G. h. ridgwayi) is by no means a very strongly marked subspecies, 

 though I must confess that the meagre South American material examined by me 

 does not afford a satisfactory comparison. It has been claimed that the rufescent 

 stage is much less common among the Central American than among the South Ameri- 

 can birds. In order to test this, I divided the series of 304 adult specimens examined 

 into three series, according to the character of their plumage, as foUows: (1) Speci- 

 mens with the tail banded with brown (or blackish) and white; (2) specimens with 

 the tail banded with brown and cinnamon-rufous, but otherwise like series 1 in 

 coloration; and (3) specimens having the tail as in series 2, but with the rest of the 

 upper parts more or less distinctly rufescent. Each of these three styles of coloration 

 are represented geographically as follows: 



I=Specimens with white tail-bands and grayish brown backs. 

 II=Specimens with rufous tail-bands and grayish brown backs. 

 III=Specimens with rufous tail-bands and rufous or rufous-brown backs. 



