VOl i90? IV ] Allen, The Rio Grande Seedeater. 29 



c? juv. (first winter). Upper J 1 juv. (first winter). Upper- 

 parts ochraceous brown, grayer on parts grayish brown, head clearer 

 the head, more ochraceous on the gray, lower back and rump dull 

 lower back and rump, with usually buffy brown, with flecks of black 

 a few specks of black on the head on the head, mostly concealed or 

 and pectoral region; below deep wanting; below pale buff; quills 

 ochraceous; wings and tail ochra- blackish, externally edged with 

 ceous brown externally, the inner grayish brown; in other words 

 and basal portions of the quills nearly like the female but grayer, 

 brownish black; in other words, with a tendency to concealed or 

 nearly iike the female. partially concealed black on the 



head. 



9 ad. Above yellowish olive 9 ad. Above uniform dull gray- 



tinged with brown, below dull ish olive; below pale buff; distinct 

 clay-color varying (in different whitish wing bars, 

 birds) to raw sienna; distinct whit- 

 ish wing bars. 



In other words, without regard to the less amount of black and 

 its much duller tone in the northern birds, the general coloration 

 at all stages and in both sexes is very different in the two forms. 

 It is as strikingly pronounced in the females as in the males, the 

 grayish olivaceous of the upperparts, and the pale buff of the lower 

 parts, in the northern form (Texas and Nuevo Leon birds) being in 

 strong contrast with the deep brownish yellow olive of the upper 

 parts and the clay-color of the lower parts in the southern form 

 (Yucatan and Honduras birds). The young males and middle- 

 aged males of the two forms differ in the same way, in general 

 coloration, as the females; in the middle-aged and old males there 

 is the same marked difference in the amount and tone of the black. 



The Tampico series is somewhat intermediate between Rio 

 Grande and Honduras birds, but much nearer, as would be 

 expected, to the northern form. They have the same grayish 

 brown dorsal plumage, and the same dull whitish or buffy under- 

 parts, but seem to tend in adult males to the development of a 

 larger amount of black on the back and to a deeper tone on the 

 ventral surface in females, and young birds. 



Sharpe seems to have properly separated the two forms geo- 

 graphically but referred the northern form to the wrong species. 

 Lawrence in naming this form took for his male type specimen 



