lyS 



Recent Literafure. [April 



C. ckrysocaulosus of Cuba, and C. gundlacki oi Qir&nd Ca_ynian, both evi- 

 dently offshoots from the auratus stock, modified bj environment, and 

 differing from atiratim somewhat as inexicanoides differs from cafer.'' 



Of the three groups into which these forms may be classed, (i) cafer- 

 mexicanoides, (2) chrysoidcs, and (3) auratus, "the first and the last, so 

 far as features of coloration are concerned are the most unlike, having no 

 special characters in common, and jet it is these two, cafer and auratus, 

 which, as shown bj the material now in hand, thoroughly intergrade 

 wherever their habitats meet, that is, over a belt of country from 300 to 

 400 miles wide, and some 1200 to 1500 miles long. Thej are also more or 

 less mixed from the eastern border of the Great Plains westward to the 

 Pacific Coast, from about the latitude of 38° noithward to about latitude 

 55°." The intermediates between the two vary "from individuals of C. 

 auratus presenting only the slightest traces of C. cafer," or vice versa, 

 "to birds in which the characters ot the two are about equally blended. 

 Thus we may have C. auratus with merely a few red feathers in the black 

 malar stripe, or with the quills merely slightly flushed with orange, or C. 

 cafer with either a few black feathers in the red malar stripe or a few red 

 feathers at the side of the nape, or an incipient barely traceable scarlet 

 nuchal crescent." Where the mixture of characters is more complete, an 

 unsymmetrical combination is the rule. The quills of wings or tail may 

 be some red and others yellow; "a bird may have the general coloration 

 of true cafer combined with a well developed nuchal crescent, or nearly 

 pure auratus with ihe red malar stripes of cafer" ; sometimes the body 

 plumage is of one form, the head of the other. In short there are "almost 

 endless variations, it being rare to find, even in birds from the same nest, 

 two individuals alike in all their features of coloration." 



East of the Mississippi, with rare exceptions, the cafer characters out- 

 cropping in auratus are confined to traces of red in the malar stripe which 

 are to be seen in "perhaps one male in a thousand (or more probably a 

 still smaller proportion)." This occurs about equally throughout this 

 area, "quite as frequently along the Atlantic seaboard as at any point east 

 of the Mississippi River." Nearlj' pure auratus probably "prevails west- 

 ward to the eastern border of Texas, Indian Territory, Kansas and 

 Nebraska, and over the greater part of both Dakotas and Manitoba." 

 Throughout the Plains mixed birds are the rule, though in winter in the 

 more southern portions there is some influx of both auratus and cafer. 

 From central Colorado and western Texas to Nevada and southein Cali- 

 fornia nearly pure cafer prevails in the breeding season, though mixed 

 birds are not uncommon in winter. From Wyoming and Montana west 

 to the Cascades the mixed birds occur with but few exceptions, while from 

 Puget Sound southward to central California are found mixed birds to- 

 getl>er with nearly pure representatives of both cafer and auratus. 



All this array of evidence, to which scant justice can be done here, but 

 which Mr. Allen has marshalled so admirably, leads him to re-aflirm the 

 hypothesis, originally suggested by Baird, "of hybridization on a grand 



