116 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



May 26, was built on the ground, among scrub-oak brush. It is a very slight 

 structure, composed almost entirely of coarse dry stems of grass, with a few 

 bits of coarse inner bark, and with a base made up wholly with the latter 

 material, and having a diameter of about four inches. 



The eggs of this nest, four in number, have an average measurement of .95 

 of an inch in length by .73 in breadth. Their ground-color is crystalline- 

 white, covered very generally with spots and small blotches of purplish and 

 wine-colored brown, somewhat aggregated at the larger end. 



Pipilo maculatus, var. oregonus, Bell. 



OKEGON GROUND ROBIN. 



Pipilo oregonus, Bell, Ann N. Y. Lye. V, 1852, 6 (Oregon). — Bonap. Comptes Rendus, 

 XXXVII, Dec. 1853, 922. — Ib. Notes Orn. Dekttre, 1854, 22 (same as prec). — 

 Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 513. — Lord, Pr. R. A. Inst. IV, 64, 120 (British CoL). 

 — Cooper & Suckley, 200. — Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 241. Fringilla ardica, Aud. Orn. 

 Biog. V, 1839, 49, pL cccxciv. (not of Swainson). Pipilo ardica, Aud. Syn. 1839, 

 123. — Ib. Birds Am. Ill, 1841, 164, pi. cxciv. 



Sp. Char. Upper surface generally, with the head and neck all round to the upper 



part of the breast, deep black ; the rest of lower 

 parts pure Avhite, except the sides of the body 

 and under tail-coverts, which are light chestnut- 

 bi-own ; the latter rather paler. The outer webs of 

 scapulars (usually edged narrowly with black) and 

 of the superincumbent feathers of the back, with a 

 rounded white spot at the end of the outer webs 

 of the greater and middle coverts ; the outer edges of the innermost tertials white ; no 

 white at the base of the primaries. Outer web of the first tail-feather black, occasionally 

 white on the extreme edge ; the outer three with a white tip to the inner web. Outer 

 quill shorter than ninth, or scarcely equalling the secondaries ; fourth quill longest ; fifth 

 scarcely shorter. Length, 8.25; wing, 4.40; tail, 4.00. Female with the black replaced 

 by a more brownish tinge. Claws much as in erythrophtlialmus. 



Hab. Coasts of Oregon and Washington Territories, south to San Francisco, California. 

 Melting eastward and south into megalonyx. West Humboldt Mountains and Northern 

 Sierra Nevada. 



Comparing tbis race with arcticus, we do not find much difference in the 

 white of the scapular region, except that 

 the white marks here, as elsewhere on the 

 wing, are rounded, the extreme end of the 

 outer web of the feather being black in- 

 stead of running out acutely white to the 

 very tip of the outer webs of the feathers. 

 This gives rather less extension to the -T 

 white. In fact, most of the white marks 



286J 



are edged externally with black, convert- 

 ing them into spots. There is no wliite whatever at the exposed base of tlie 



