572 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Cohnnbigallina passerina exigua Riley, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXIX, 1905, 171 

 (Mona I.; orig. descr.; type in collection U. S. National Museum). 



Chamcepelia exigua Lowe, Ibis, 1908, 115 (crit.). 



Chamepelia passerina exigua Todd, Ann. Carnegie Mus., VII, 1911, 391, 392 (faunal 

 distribution), 417 (Alfred Sound and Mathewtown, Great Inagua; crit.). — 

 Worthington, Ann. Carnegie Mus., VII, 1911, 403, 450 (Great Inagua). 



Subspecific characters. — Male and female: similar to C. p. baha- 

 mensis, and bill (in skin) wholly dark as in typical examples of that 

 form, but general coloration paler throughout, and size smaller. 



Measurements. — Male: wing, 76-82 (average, 78.5); tail, 51-55 (52); 

 exposed culmen, 10. 5-1 1.5 (10.8); tarsus, 14. 5-15. 5 (15). Female: 

 wing, 77-83 (78.5); tail, 51-58 (53); exposed culmen, 10-11 (10.7); 

 tarsus, 14.5-15.5 (15). 



Range. — Mona Island (off Porto Rico), and Great Inagua, Bahama 

 Islands. 



Remarks.— In view of the subtle and more or less inconstant char- 

 acters applying to the other Antillean forms, it is a surprise to find a 

 form occurring right in their midst, so to speak, which is sharply 

 differentiated — as distinctions in this species go — from its neighbors 

 on either side. It was described by Mr. J. H. Riley originally from 

 Mona Island, lying between Porto Rico and Haiti, where we would 

 naturally expect to find intergrades between the two imperfectly 

 segregated forms C. p. trochila and C. p. aflavida, but instead we get a 

 bird which is quite distinct from either. This would be extraordinary 

 enough it would seem, but it is doubly surprising to find that a series 

 of Ground Doves from the island of Great Inagua, the most southern 

 of the Bahaman group, should prove to belong to the same small, 

 pale race. How can such an anomalous distribution be explained? 



This is decidedly the palest of all the forms of this species, being 

 even paler and grayer above than C. p. pallescens. There is not so 

 much white on the posterior under parts, however, as in C. p. albi- 

 vitta; this is especially true of the females, but it scarcely needs com- 

 parison with that subspecies, the sharply bicolored bill and lavender- 

 grayish tinged under parts of which find no counterpart in C. p. 

 exigua. As previously noted, some specimens from Haiti are as pale 

 as the Mona and Great Inagua birds, which may be of some sig- 

 nificance, but I am inclined to think that the real affinities of the 

 latter are rather with C. p. bahamensis. As remarked under the head 

 of that form, a series from Rum Cay is somewhat paler than New 

 Providence birds, indicating an approach to the present form. Un- 



