Vol. XXXVII 



1919 



Oberholser, Races of Quiscalus quiscula. 553 



excepting the bill and feet; upper and lower parts usually much more 

 purplish, and barred or mottled with metallic green or blue. 



Description. — Type, adult male, Washington, D. C, March 30,, 1912; 

 H. H. T. Jackson. Forehead between metallic fluorite violet and blackish 

 violet, shading to blackish purple, with bronzy reflections on cervix, sides 

 of head and of neck; lores velvet black with a greenish or bluish sheen; 

 back, scapulars, and sides of breast, metallic greenish bronze mixed with 

 metallic purplish bronze, marine blue, and blackish purple; rump purplish 

 bronze; upper tail-coverts deep blackish purple with deep blue and bronze 

 reflections ; tail varying from metallic blackish dusky violet to deep metallic 

 indigo blue, the margins of the inner webs of the feathers brownish black ; 

 wings brownish black with a faint bluish green or purplish sheen, but the 

 exposed surfaces of tertials, greater, median, lesser, and the inner primary 

 coverts, together with the outer edges of the secondaries, of the same 

 color as the cervix, the basal portion of the outer margin of the primaries 

 with a pronounced metallic greenish blue gloss, this becoming more pur- 

 plish on the inner primaries; outer edge of alula deep dusky dull bluish 

 green ; chin and throat like the cervix, but the extreme anterior part of the 

 chin decidedly deep metallic bluish; jugulum and sides of throat, purplish 

 bronze; rest of lower parts metallic deep dusky dull violet, but the sides 

 and flanks decidedly bronzy, and the middle of the abdomen dull black 

 with little metallic sheen; lining of wing black with greenish, bluish, and 

 purplish reflections. Wing, 144 mm.; tail, 136 mm.; exposed culmen, 

 30.5 mm.; tarsus, 33.5 mm.; middle toe without claw, 25 mm. 1 



Type Locality. — Washington, D. C. 



Geographic Distribution. — Middle eastern United States. Breeds 

 north to southern Rhode Island, southern Connecticut, southeastern New 

 York, and northeastern Pennsylvania; west to central Pennsylvania, 

 extreme western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, southeastern Kentucky, 

 central Tennessee, and northern Mississippi; south to central Mississippi, 

 central Alabama, and northern South Carolina; and east to central North 

 Carolina and the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Rhode Island. Winters 

 south to southern Louisiana, southern Alabama, southern South Carolina, 

 and probably to Florida. 



Remarks. — In color this race is exceedingly variable. Dr. 

 F. M. Chapman has so fully treated 2 its color variations that no 

 detailed description of these is here necessary. He distinguished 

 three color phases: (1) the bottle green, (2) the bronze purple, (3) 

 the brassy bluish green; but we should rather consider that there 

 are four such color phases, as follows: (1) bottle green, (2) bronze 



1 For further measurements of this subspecies, cf. Ridgway, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 50, 

 pt. II, 1902, pp. 215-216. 



2 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Mist., IV, Feb. 25, 1892, pp. 1-20. 



