136 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



striatus, although at Fundacion the two species were apparently more 

 evenly divided. 



ii. Butorides striatus (Linnaeus). 



Butorides cyanurus Salvin and Godman, Ibis, 1879, 206 (Santa Marta region, 



exact locality omitted). 

 Butorides striata Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XXVI, 1898, 175 (Valle de 



Upar). — Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 125 (Bonda). 



Fifteen specimens: Mamatoco, Bonda, Santa Marta, Fundacion, 

 Trojas de Cataca, and Don Diego. 



Having been able to examine in this connection a large series of 

 specimens of this species, the property of several different institutions, 

 we have reached the conclusion that no satisfactory subdivision of the 

 species is possible. It is true that there is a great deal of variation 

 in color, especially affecting the back and neck, but these variations 

 are certainly not correlated with locality, and some of them are prob- 

 ably indicative of a tendency to dichromatism, to which so many mem- 

 bers of this family are peculiarly susceptible. In what appears to be 

 the normal phase the sides of the head and neck are practically pure 

 pearl gray, with little or no brownish wash. From this condition in- 

 dividuals vary all the way to birds in which these parts are strongly 

 washed with vinaceous brown. It was an individual in this extreme 

 phase which constituted the type of Butorides robinsoni Richmond 

 {Proceedings U. S. National Museum, XVIII, 1896, 655), but the oc- 

 currence of similar birds in Venezuela and Peru (as shown by the 

 series examined) would seem to preclude the possibility of this being 

 anything more than a color-phase. 



This little heron is a common bird all through the lowlands, wher- 

 ever there are streams or marshes of fair size. 



12. Tigrisoma lineatum (Boddaert). 



Tigrisoma lineatum Carriker, Ann. Carnegie Mus., VI, 1910, 433 ([Santa 



Marta region], Colombia; crit). — Chapman, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 



XXXVI, 1917, 231, in text ("Santa Marta"; crit.). 



Nine specimens : Don Diego, Las Vegas, Fundacion, and Trojas de 

 Cataca. 



Our series of this tiger bittern (which includes eight specimens 

 from other parts, besides the above) shows that there are three distinct 

 plumages, apparently dependent on age. First, there is the barred buff 



