Vol. XVII Bisuop, Mew Birds from Alaska. 117 
1900 
Measurements of type.— Length, 6.69; extent, 11; wing, 3.52; tail, 
2.92; exposed culmen, .49; bill from nostril, .38; width of bill at base, 
.30; tarsus, .62 inches. 
Description.— Above clove-brown darker on head; wings and tail 
brownish black, the secondaries faintly margined externally, the tertia- 
ries more broadly, with whitish; greater and middle wing-coverts tipped 
with brownish white forming two bars across wings; indistinct orbital 
ring and loral spot of whitish. Below, including axillars and lower 
wing-coverts, dull grayish brown becoming darker and more olivaceous 
on sides of breast and flanks; throat and lower tail-coverts whitish, the 
feathers becoming grayish-brown centrally; central abdomen rovers 
white. Mandible brown, paler toward base. 
Measurements of Lew specimens. — Wing, 3.19- 3: 50 (average ia: a tail, 
2.54-2.92 (average 2.66); exposed culmen, .43~.49 (average 146); bill from 
nostril, .33—.40 (average .37); width of bill at base, .30-.34 (average .32); 
tarsus, .52-.62 (average .56) inches. 
Measurements of twelve specimens of Contopus richardsonii from Cali- 
fornia, Arizona, Texas and South Dakota. Wing, 3.14-3.61 (average 
3-40); tail, 2.41-2.88 (average 2.66); exposed culmen, .45-.52 (average .49); 
bill from nostril, 38-43 (average .40); width of bill at base, .33-38 (aver- 
age .35); tarsus, .48-.55 (average .52) inches. 
Remarks. — Contopus richardsonii (Swains.), described from a 
single bird taken at Cumberland House, June 27, is divisible into 
three well-marked geographical races, — richardsonii, inhabiting 
most of western North America; fenimsule, paler with larger bill, 
confined to Lower California; and saturatus, darker with smaller 
bill, confined to Alaska and the coast of British Columbia in the 
summer. 
A second specimen of saturatus from Haines has the throat as 
well as the abdomen yellowish. Summer birds from the Yukon 
Valley and Ducks, Brit. Col. -—the latter in the collection of the 
Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. — are browner, less olivaceous, above than 
the type, and the Yukon birds have shorter wings and tails, but 
all are darker than richardson, and have the small bill, brownish 
mandible, and longer tarsus of saturatus. Males taken at New 
Westminster, Brit. Col., May 31, and Fort Verde, Arizona, May 
10, now in the Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., and another taken at River- 
side, Cal., May 11, now in the collection of Mr. William Brewster, 
closely resemble the type; the latter two are doubtless migrants. 
Breeding birds in the collection of Mr. Brewster from Chilliwack, 
B. C., Fort Klamath, Ore., and Nicasio, Cal., are intermediate. 
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