BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 37 



dull black and olive-buff, with a slight buffy tinge. A female from 

 Kilometer 80, west of Puerto Pinasco, Paraguay, is grayer through- 

 out than any of the others, while the markings on the liind neck 

 and on the underj^arts are greatly restricted. 



Spotted tinamous are birds of sedentary habit that have been 

 divided into a number of subspecies, even under the more or less 

 cursory examination that has been granted them by ornithologists 

 up to the present time. When series of specimens are available from 

 their entire range it will be found that a number of geographic races 

 have been overlooked, as it is probable that every extensive river 

 system may have a distinct form ranging through the plains of its 

 drainage basin. In the material at hand in the United States 

 National Museum three types of coloration are readily distinguished 

 among the spotted tinamous; Nothura m. maculosa, N. m. nigro- 

 guttata, and N. m. savannai^m (probably N . m. minor, which I have 

 not seen) a group of subspecies characterized by more or less intense 

 buffy coloration and bold markings of the dorsal surface, ranging 

 from the well-watered pampas north to the Chaco and through 

 eastern Paraguay, Uruguay, and southern Brazil; Nothura m. 

 boUviana, N. m. peruviana, and N. m. agassizi of grayish color, 

 strongly marked above and streaked on the breast below, covering 

 eastern Peru, Bolivia, and the Chaco in Bolivia, Paraguay, and 

 Argentina ;^^ and Nothura d. daricini, N. d. tnendosensis, and N. d. 

 salvadorii, of grayish cast, with fine, vermiculated lining above and 

 diffuse markings below, from Patagonia, and the arid regions of 

 western Argentina, north into Salta. Nothura maculosa and N. 

 darioini are at present recognized as distinct species, while the 

 group characterized by holiviana (including the forms given above) 

 would also seem distinct, specially from N. maculosa in the char- 

 acters that have been enumerated. It is significant that a form 

 identical with or close to holivia/na was taken at Las Palmas on the 

 west bank of the Kio Paraguay, while a specimen in the United 

 States National Museum, from Corrientes a few miles below on the 

 eastern shore, just below the confluence of the Parana and Paraguay, 

 has the buffy coloration and bold markings of the true maculosa 

 group. The relationships of these birds are points to be settled 

 only when additional series are available., 



Nothura m. hoUvia^ia does not seem to have been recorded pre- 

 viously from Argentina. 



One who has garnered from desultory reading on South American 

 natural history that the spotted tinamou is a bird of weak, uncertain 



^ Tinamus ioraquira Spix (Av. spec. nov. Brazillam, vol. 2, 1825, p. 63, pi. 79) if 

 correctly delineated in the original plate should be placed in the genus Nothoprocta, 

 a group that differs from Nothura in having the posterior face of the tarsus covered 

 with small reticulate, hexagonal scales instead of with two rows of large scutes, the 

 outer of which is much broader and more distinct than the inner. 

 54207—26 i 



