BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 405 

 PHRYGILUS FRUTICETI FRUTICETI (Kittlitz) 



Fringilla fruticeti Kittlitz, Kupf. Naturg. Vog., 1832, p. 18, pi. 23, fig. 1. 

 (Coast near Valparaiso, Chile.) 



In a recent partial review of Phi^ygilus, Lowe" has proposed to 

 divide the genus as ordinarily taken into four groups, basing his 

 action apparently mainly on color pattern. (He does not include 

 in his study P. alaudinus and its allies, which have been placed by 

 some in a fifth segregation.) After a careful study of the entire 

 group, and a consideration of the structural characters of the dif- 

 ferent sj)ecies, I am led to follow a somewhat different course. The 

 two speqies melanodera and xanthograviina differ from all others in- 

 volved in the greatly exaggerated wing tip, where the distance from 

 the longest secondaries to the tip of the longest primaries is one- 

 third of the length of the wing, the ninth (outermost) primary is 

 equal to or slightly longer than the eighth, and the other primaries 

 decrease regularly in length to the first. (In true Phrygilus the 

 wing tip is decidedly more rounded.) In addition the bill is more 

 conical, more sharplj'^ pointed, a condition that reaches its maximum 

 in xanthogrammia. These two species may be separated as the genus 

 Melanodera Bonaparte.^ (I am uncertain as to the relationships of 

 Rowettia to this group, as I have not seen specimens.) 



All of the remaining species must be included in the genus 

 Phrygilus^ since there are no structural characters whereby groups 

 of the species involved may be separated definitely from one an- 

 other. The divisions that have been proposed may be considered 

 one by one. The type of the supposed genus Rhopospina^^ Phry- 

 gilus fruticeti (Kittlitz), has the wing formula, wing tip, tarsal and 

 bill structure so similar to that of Phrygilus gayi (Eydoux and 

 Gervais) that the two may not be separated excej^t on the basis 

 of color. Phinjgilus alaudinus (Kittlitz), which has been segregated 

 as the type of Corydospiza Sundevall,^° has the inner secondaries 

 almost as long as the primaries, a character shared by Phrygilus 

 carhonarius (d'Orbigny and Lafresnaye), which from color is placed 

 by Lowe in Rhopospina. The wing tip is gradually lengthened 

 in P. plehejus Cabanis, and P. ocularis Sclater, until it approxi- 

 mates the length found in P. gayi and its allies. Corydospiza may 

 be used as a subgenus to include the four species mentioned in which 

 the wing tip is shorter than the culmen from base, as distinguished 

 from a subgenus Phrygilus {verus), in which the Aving tip is 

 longer than the culmen. Transition between the two is so gradual 



■f Ibis, 192.3, pp. 513-519. 



' Consp. Gen. Av., vol. 1, 1850, p. 470. Type, Emberiza melanodera Quoy and 

 Gaimard. 



» Cabanis, Mus. Hein., pt. 1, April, 1851, p. 135. 

 i»Av. Tent., 1872, p. 33. 



