BIRDS OF AEGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 29 



March 27. The small series secured at General Roca came from a 

 point about 80 kilometers east of the town of Neuquen, the type 

 locality of the subspecies described as morenoi by Chubb. These 

 differ from birds from the mouth of the Rio Negro (designated b} 

 Peters, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 65, May, 1923, p. 287, as type 

 locality of C. e. elegans), in grayer coloration and in lighter, less 

 heavy barring of the underparts that tend to become immaculate on 

 the abdomen. The two birds from Tunuyan, Mendoza, differ from 

 those from General R.oca in slightly browner coloration, with the 

 light spots and bars on the upper surface larger, giving a distinctly 

 more speckled appearance to the back. This same tendency is ex- 

 hibited in the juvenile specimen from Victorica, Pampa. Birds from 

 the three localities, however, may be allocated to morenoi without 

 violence, giving this form a range extending from the Rio Negro, 

 in Neuquen and western Rio Negro (probably from the southern 

 side of the watershed of this stream), north through the plains and 

 lower Andean foothills to central Mendoza, and east through the 

 western Pampas to extreme north central Pampa (probably through 

 San Luis). In San Juan morenoi is replaced by the peculiar pale 

 Calopezus e. albidus Wetmore,^° while to the northward are found 

 CaJopezus e. formosus Lillo in eastern Tucuman and northwestern 

 Santiago del Estero and C. e. intermedins Dabbene and Lillo ^^ in the 

 Andean valleys of w^estern Tucuman and La Rioja. CalojJesus ele- 

 gans elegans is thus confined to eastern and southern Patagonia and 

 southern Buenos Aires. 



An adult male of morenoi from General Roca taken December 2 is 

 molting and has new feathers of the body plumage appearing on the 

 back. These new plumes are considerably darker in ground coloi- 

 than the old feathers, while the light markings are suffused with u 

 deeper shade of buff, indicating that the dry arid climatic conditions 

 found in the haunt of this bird induce considerable fading of the 

 plumage. 



The chick (U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 283661) has the ground color of 

 the head buffy brown, with a line of dull white extending from the 

 base of the nasal groove backward on either side of the crown down 

 over the back of the neck. This line has the brown feathers on either 

 margin tipped with points of black that form a broken border for it. 

 A well- developed straight crest of 8 or 10 filamentous plumes ex- 

 tends from the back of the crown ; this is buffy brown in color with 

 the feathers marked with black below the extremity. Lores buffy 

 brown extending as a narrow line almost to edge of eyelid ; super- 



" Calopezus elegans albidus Wetmore, Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., 1921, p. 437 

 (San Juan). 

 "An. Mus. Nac. Hist. Nat. Buenos Aires, vol. 24, July 22, 1913, p. 194. 



54207—26 3 



