1 88s.] Brewster on the Heath Hen of Massachusetts. oX 



what ochraceous on the rump; under parts dark reddish-brown with 

 some concealed rusty-chestnut on the jugulum, the feathers everywhere, 

 except on the throat, anal region, and under tail-coverts, crossed by from 

 one to five narrow, continuously-transverse bars of pale rusty or white. 

 These bars, except on the sides posteriorly, are narrower than the brown 

 spaces which they separate; hence the darker color predominates. Upper 

 parts diversified by numerous ragged, irregular-shaped markings of black- 

 ish-brown or dull black, usually continuous across both webs of the 

 feather, but never embracing its tip; forehead, sides of head above the 

 eye, and entire occiput rusty brown mottled with dull black; crown black, 

 each feather tipped with buff and narrowly margined with rusty; throat 

 and lores immaculate creamy buff; sides of head below the eye of a 

 deeper, more rusty buff, with an isolated patch of dark brown on the 

 cheeks, and a stripe of reddish-brown, extending from the rictus to the 

 ends of the auriculars, passing directly below the eye but leaving the 

 eyelid buff; scapulars with large and very conspicuous terminal spots of 

 white tinged with fulvous; primaries and tail plain brownish or dusky 

 drab, the former with small round spots of pale rusty on their outer webs, 

 the latter tipped narrowly with white; plumage of tibia; and tarsi pale 

 cinnamon-brown ; each feather tipped with whitish, giving the parts a 

 mottled appearance. Crissum and under tail-coverts white, the latter with 

 irregular marginal spots of rusty or dull black. Neck-tufts 2.60 long, 

 composed of five narrow, acutely lance-pointed feathers, the under ones 

 plain, the middle two with shaft-lines of buff extending in from the tips 

 an inch or less, the exterior (overlapping) ones with much broader cen- 

 tral stripes continued nearly to the base of the feathers. 



Dimensions. — Wing, 8.35; tail, 3.75; culmen from skull, 1.06; do. from 

 feathers, .70; do. from nostril, .55; depth of bill at nostril, .3S ; tarsus, 

 1.75; middle toe, 1.60; its claw, .53. 



$ (No. — , Coll. F. T. Jencks, Martha's Vineyard). Smaller (wing, 

 7.93) ; with merely rudimentary neck-tufts; the ground tints more rusty; 

 the dark markings coarser and blacker; the tail dark clove-brown crossed 

 by numerous narrow, irregularly-transverse bars of rusty. 



The general differences between this bird and its western repre- 

 sentative, C. fiinuata, are difficult of adequate definition, for the 

 reason that they consist largely in shades of color rather than in 

 markings. Its small size, short tarsus, acutely lance-pointed 

 feathers of the neck-tufts, white-tipped scapulars, general reddish 

 coloration above, and restricted light markings beneath are, how- 

 ever, readily appreciable and apparently constant characters. The 

 bird above described is the least extreme in most of these re- 

 spects. Another before me ( J 1 , No. — , Coll. F. T. J., Martha's 

 Vineyard) actually has the greater part of the breast posteriorly 

 without exposed light bars, the nearly uniform reddish-brown 

 plumage being merely tipped with hoary. This bird is also pe- 

 culiar in having the neck-tufts dull brownish-chestnut. 



