274 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



the general coloration is much duller and browner, and the red area 

 on the wing-coverts is also duller and much mixed with black, which 

 in some cases spreads over all of these feathers except the innermost. 

 All but one of the male specimens from the Isle of Pines in the Bangs 

 Collection, as it turns out, are clearly in this immature stage, and the 

 exception (No. 13,366) is probably immature also, having some black 

 on the wing-coverts, and being considerably worn, like the others. 

 On the other hand, the Cuban males are all fully adult birds, in nowise 

 different, so far as color is concerned, from adults from the Isle of 

 Pines, with which they have been directly and carefully compared. 

 The culmen is slightly flatter, it is true, in the Cuban specimens, but 

 I believe that even this difference would disappear in a large series; 

 at any rate, it is certainly too trifling a difference upon which to base 

 the recognition of even a subspecies. 



The type of A. subniger is a female, and is obviously browner than 

 Cuban females, but I am by no means sure that this is not the result 

 of wear and fading, since I cannot discern any such striking difference 

 between the latter and the series of Isle of Pines females collected by 

 Mr. Link. This being the case, there would seem to be but one course 

 open: to treat A. subniger as a pure synonym of A. assimilis, since it 

 is clear that Mr. Bangs was misled by the circumstance of having 

 only immature examples of the bird for comparison. 



This species has a very restricted range, being known only from the 

 Zapata Swamp in Cuba and the Cienaga in the Isle of Pines. Mr. 

 Zappey's specimens were all shot in the eastern end of the Cienaga, 

 probably not far from Pasadita, in April, 1904. At this season all 

 the birds of this species from that vicinity were gathered into one 

 flock, which kept to some large trees at the edge of the swamp. From 

 the fact that the testes of the males were not enlarged, nor any very 

 young birds seen, he inferred that the breeding-season was not near 

 at hand nor recently over. As above noted, the examples he secured 

 were all (with one possible exception) immature, in first nuptial 

 plumage, and their development may not have been so rapid. At any 

 rate, the birds which Mr. Link found at Pasadita a month later in the 

 season, or during the latter part of May, were apparently all breeding 

 at the time, being always found in pairs. One nest was discovered, 

 built in the high grass at the edge of the swamp, about a foot above 

 the water. It was constructed of grasses and fastened to the surround- 

 ing stems after the fashion of the Red-winged Blackbird of the north; 



