286 Dr. 11. W. Shiifcltlt ua the naked Skin-tract!^ 



modesta, and I do not donbt that its affinities are with these 

 and other members of the somewhat complicated group it is 

 classed with; but in its habits it is a little Homorus, and 

 unlike a Synallaxis. Being a little feeble bird, it does not 

 live at the roots of trees and large bushes, but is found under 

 diminutive scrubby plants in open arid situations. About 

 the roots of these wiry little bushes, 12 to 18 inches high, 

 the bird searches for small insects, and when disturbed has 

 a feeble jerky flight, which carries it to a distance of ten or 

 twenty yards. It is, however, very difficult to make it rise ; 

 for when approached it runs swiftly away, leaving one in 

 doubt as to whether he has seen a mouse or a bird darting 

 across the naked spaces between the shrubs. Probably it has 

 acquired these habits in the desolate situations it frequents : 

 anyhow, I am so convinced of the variable character of habits 

 in general, that I am very far from imagining that the re- 

 semblance of this species to Homorus points to community 

 of descent; on the contrary, I believe that it is entirely 

 accidental. 



XXVIII. — On the Coloration in Life of the naked Skin-tracts 

 on the Head of Geococcyx californicus. By Dr. R. W. 

 Shufeldt, U.S. Army, Memb. of the Am. Ornith. Union, 

 &c. 



(Plate VII.) 



The latest authoritative work that has appeared upon North- 

 American Ornithology, the second edition of Professor Elliott 

 Coues^s ' Key to North-American Birds,' presents us, it 

 seems to me, with a very inadequate description of the ex- 

 tent of the naked skin-tracts about the eye and on the head 

 of Geococcyx, or even their coloration in life. This author 

 simply tells us that there is " a naked area around the eye," 

 and that this ''bare space around the eye [is] bluish and 

 orange." So far as I am aware, no other ornithological work 

 gives us any better description than the ' Key.' Now the 

 true condition of the tracts in question is so far different 



