30 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ciliary, beginning behind lores and extending down over sides of 

 neck white, interrupted by a black bar above center of eye, bordered 

 by a broken black line above, with a similar line beginning behind 

 eye ; auricular region deep mouse gray ; stripe below and behind eye 

 to auricular region buffy brown ; supramalar streak white, extending 

 from base of bill as a narrow line across lower loral region, broaden- 

 ing below eye and extending over side of neck; malar streak buffy 

 brown with a narrow line of black on either side; hind neck and 

 back buffy brown, the back with many slender white plumes inter- 

 spersed among the brown forming white lines, and the brown 

 feathers tipped with prominent spots of black ; this same coloration 

 extends over base of wings and flanks where the spots become 

 smaller; wings vinaceous buff mixed with white; throat, lower 

 breast, and abdomen dull white, a faintly indicated line of blackish 

 and buffy -brown spots leading down from lower margin of ramus; 

 a poorly defined band of vinaceous buff mixed with neutral gray 

 across breast. 



This chick of niorenoi from General Roca is markedly paler than 

 a chick four days or more older of G, e. elegans from Bahia Blanca. 

 The latter has the ground color of the down on the crown tawny- 

 olive, while on the back it is slightly duller than tawny-olive. The 

 young elegans is more heavily banded across the breast and has 

 underparts decidedly browner in color. The distinction between 

 these two young is more decided than in the few adults examined. 



The martineta or crested tinamou was observed from a train near 

 the town of Rio Colorado, Rio Negro, on November 21, while at 

 General Roca, Rio Negro, the birds were common from November 

 25 to December 3. Small bands containing from three to six or 

 eight were encountered among the arid hills lying north of town, 

 often near the mouths of little valleys that opened out on barren 

 flats. The birds ranged back and forth in the open thorny scrub, 

 from the bottoms of the draws to tops of low hills, passing out onto 

 the flats below or penetrating (pi. 16) inland among the hills. The 

 flocks were composed mainly of males that were not breeding, some 

 in a condition of partial molt of the body plumage. The presence 

 of flocks was betrayed by their curious, three-toed tracks in the sand, 

 thougli the birds themselves usually hid. As I ranged back and 

 forth over the low slopes in search, the tinamou finally took alarm, 

 usually when I had returned the second or third time over ground 

 where I suspected that they were concealed, and burst out with a 

 roar of wings like a pheasant, to pass out of sight over the slopes. 

 Occasionally one, more wary than the others, came out from 40 to 

 100 meters behind me and dropped at once over the crest of a hill 

 without offering a shot. The birds rise swiftly from 3 to 6 meters in 

 the air and then go straight away, perhaps climbing gradually to 



