Todd-Carriker : Birds of Santa Marta Region, Colombia. 515 



Mr. Hellmayr still considers olivacea as a valid form (cf. Novitates 

 Zoologiccr, XII, 1905, 278). 



Males alone have been considered in the above study, but females 

 vary almost as much. 



This little seedeater is essentially a bird of the lower half of the 

 Tropical Zone, for while it ranges from sea-level up to 4,000 feet, it 

 is only a straggler above 2,000 feet. It is fairly common at Minca, 

 and abundant at Fundacion, but rare at Don Diego (only one pair be- 

 ing noted), where conditions are unfavorable. It was always seen in 

 pairs or flocks, and usually in company with some other species of the 

 genus, or with allied forms. It prefers tall grasses as cover rather 

 than bushes and shrubbery, and seems to subsist almost entirely upon 

 the seeds of these when they can be had. 



The Carnegie Museum received a nest and two eggs of this species 

 from Mr. Smith, collected at Don Amo, July 23. The nest is a small, 

 frail affair, built entirely of fine, stiff, light-colored fibers, without 

 special lining, and is placed in a small branch of a wild pepper bush 

 (Banistcria adunca). The eggs measure about 17.5 X : 3; tne y ars 

 white, with a faint greenish tinge, thickly covered with irregular and 

 more or less confluent spots of brown. 



494. Sporophila minuta minuta (Linnaeus). 



Sporophila minuta Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 166 (Bonda, 

 Onaca, and Cienaga). 



Twenty-six specimens : Bonda, Don Diego, Gaira, Rio Hacha, Ma- 

 matoco, Fundacion, and Tucurinca. 



Seasonal variation in this species is certainly very great. August 

 males in worn breeding plumage are neutral gray above, with faint 

 darker mottling, while a May specimen in fresh plumage is brownish 

 olive above, with the broad and conspicuous outer margins of the 

 tertiaries and wing-coverts isabella-color. When or how the transi- 

 tion from one plumage to the other takes place the series unfortunately 

 does not show, although there are a few specimens with scattered cin- 

 namon feathers underneath collected in both May and August, sug- 

 gesting that the species may breed before attaining perfect plumage. 



A Tropical Zone species, not found in the foothills, except as an 

 occasional straggler, being practically confined to the drier portions 

 of the coastal plain and the Magdalena basin. It was most abundant 



