206 BIRDS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 



expressive. I procured a single specimen, with a pale straw-colored 

 bill ; it was a male, the plumage nearly pure white, much more so 

 than in any of the orange-billed birds, and the fifth primary had the 

 black narrowly edged externally with white the whole length. I am 

 not prepared to say that this bird, which agrees with the exceptions 

 above mentioned, with the other, is a different species, and if so, 

 which of them is the Flavirostris of Brandt. The orange-billed 

 specimens were both male and female, and there was no external 

 peculiarity b}^ which the sex could be determined. 



"The figure in Gray's 'Genera 'of this bird is very good. My 

 specimen agrees generally with Mr. George W. Lawrence's descrip- 

 tion in the ninth volume of the Pacific Railroad Report. They are 

 precisely alike in their markings, varying only in the shade of 

 salmon, which is always deepest on the long tail-feathers, and next 

 on the back and hind neck. The tarsus and hind toe are not yellow, 

 but flesh-colored, and this color extends obliquely across the foot 

 from tlie basal extremity of the outer toe to the end of the first pha- 

 lange of the inner toe. There is no black that I can discover at the 

 base of the sixth primary, though its shaft, as well as those of all the 

 others, is black, except toward the tip. The white tips of the five 

 outer jDrimaries diminish in extent from the first to the third, and 

 then again increase to the fifth. The sino-le eo-o- is laro-e for the size 

 of the bird, whitish, covered almost entirely with reddish chocolate- 

 colored spots, finely dotted over the surface, which can be easily 

 rubbed off. The small number that I procured were of nearly the 

 same form and dimensions. One of them measured .053 in length 



