BIRDS — ICTERIDAE — AGELAIUS GUBEENATOE. 629 



AGELAIUS GUBERNATOR, Bon. 



Red-shouldered Blackbird. 



Psarocolius gubeniator, Waglkr, Isis, 1833, iv, 281. 



^gelaius gubernator, Bon. List, 1838.— Ib. Conspectus, 1850, 430.— Add. Syn. 1839, 141.— Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 



29 ; pi. 215.— Newberry, P. R. R. Rep. VI, iv, 1857, 86. 

 Icterus (Zanthornus) guhemator, Nuttall, Man. I, 2d ed. 1840, 187. 



Sp. Ch. — Bill rather shorter than the head, without any longitudinal sulci, but with faint traces of transverse ones at the 

 base of the lower jaw. Tail rounded. First quill nearly equal to the fourth. 



Male. — ^Throughout of a lustrous velvety blaclt, with a greenish reflection. The shoulders and leaser coverts rich crimson ; 

 the middle coverts brownish yellow at the base, but the exposed portion blaclc. 



Female. — Dusky, varied with paler. Length, 9 ; wing, 5 ; tail, 3.80. 



Hah — Pacific coast of the United States. Colorado river? 



The till of this species is rather small, heing scarcely as long as the head. It is about half 

 as high at the hase as long, and exhibits no sulci on the upper mandible. At the base of the 

 lower jaw are some sulci or wrinkles perpendicular to the commissure. The second, third, and 

 fourth quills are nearly equal ; the first between the fourth and fifth. The tail is considerably 

 rounded ; the lateral feather about .30 of an inch shortest. The feet are rather slender. 



A female is throughout of a dark brownish black, scarcely varied at all, except on the chin 

 and throat, which are reddish white streaked with brown. There is a rather distinct super- 

 ciliary stripe of reddish white. The shoulder feathers are edged with darkish rose color. 



I find it exceedingly difficult to distinguish satisfactorily this species from the A. pJioeniceus 

 in certain stages of plumage. The bill is a little smaller, with a tendency to transverse 

 sulcations on the lower mandible ; the proportions are much the same ; stouter than in tricolor. 

 The tail is almost as much rounded ; much more so than in A, tricolor. The red on the 

 shoulder is of much the same brilliant crimson, but it is confined to the lesser coverts ; the 

 bases of the middle row of coverts are brownish yellow, but the exposed portion is black instead 

 of being brownish yellow as in phoeniceus, or white as in tricolor. Sometimes, however, by the 

 elongation of the yellowish basal portion, some of this color shows beyond the red as in 

 pJioeniceus. Wherever, however, these middle coverts were all tipped with black, even if 

 not very broadly, I have referred the species to guhernator, as in a large series of p)hoeniceus I 

 have seen but one or two with a black tip to even some of these coverts. 



The females are scarcely to be distinguished from those of A. tricolor, except possibly by the 

 more rounded tail, and stouter, shorter bill. It was at one time supposed that the female of 

 guhernator was the darker, but there are three specimens before me, (4598 — 4600,) which, in 

 the amount of light color beneath, approximate to A. phoeniceus. It is quite possible that there 

 may be another species mixed in with the supposed tricolor and guhernator, and distinct from 

 phoeniceus, but the specimens before me are not sufficient to decide the question. 



The transverse striae or wrinkles at the base of the lower jaw, and the absence of any on the 

 upper, appear in most cases to be quite characteristic and appreciable, (in the adult males at 

 least,) as compared with the longitudinal wrinkles on both mandibles of A. phoeniceus and 

 tricolor. 



The females of both A. tricolor and guhernator appear to lack the trace of a median stripe on 



the crown seen in phoeniceus. 



Jane 25, 1858. 



67 b 



