i 4 4 



Stejneger on the genus Acanthi's. 



fApril 



Egret (A. rufa). I have not met with it at all north of the mouth 

 of the Anclote River, at which point it is rare. In all the rook- 

 eries about Tampa, Old Tampa, and Hillsboro' Bays, it is more 

 or less common, but its representatives are almost entirely in the 

 colored phase, and only now and then, at rare intervals, is a 

 white bird (A. ficalei) met with. 



( To be continued?) 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ON THE GENUS 

 ACANTHIS. 



BY LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 



The well-known Austrian ornithologist, Victor, Ritter von 

 Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen, has most courteously sent me four 

 specimens of Acanthi's cabaret from Austria, thus enabling me 

 to supplement my former paper (Auk, 1SS7, P- 3 1 ) on tne su ^" 

 ject with a few notes. 



I stated that from the examination of an Italian specimen I 

 was "strongly inclined to think that it will be necessary ulti- 

 mately to recognize A. rufescens (Vieill.) as different from A. 

 cabaret.'''' The Italian specimen, as compared with British 

 birds, differed chiefly (1) in being of a brighter and more ochra- 

 ceous brown; (2) in having whitish (not pale umber brown) 

 outer margins to the tail-feathers ; (3) in having the flanks more 

 heavily streaked ; (4) in having dusky streaks across the fore 

 neck, and (5) in having a decidedly smaller bill. 



The four Austrian birds show conclusively that the above 

 characters will not hold as distinguishing continental specimens 

 from British ones. They are practically identical with typical 

 British A. cabaret, and can be matched completely, and I have 

 British specimens of A. cabaret before me which are considerably, 

 brighter in general coloration, and have the flanks more heavily 

 streaked than the Austrian examples, none of which exhibit any 

 duskv streaks across the fore neck. Of the latter two have whit- 

 ish outer margins to the tail-feathers, while in the other two they 

 are brownish, and as to the size of the bill, the table below de- 



