fSpi-] Cory on West Indian Birch. JC 



The tail marking varies in ditlcrent specimens, and some exam- 

 ples show the two external tail-feathers differently marked in the 

 same bird. At first glance the Inagua bird would appear to 

 represent a fairly good race, as the average specimens are slightly 

 smaller, and a majority of them have the white patch on the 

 primaries completely covered, when the wing is closed, by the 

 white primary coverts (the primary coverts are sometimes white 

 and sometimes tipped and blotched with brown, according to age 

 and season), but taken in large series it is found that at least one 

 fourth of the specimens show the white on the closed wing ex- 

 tending beyond the primary coverts, and we find birds from Porto 

 Rico, San Domingo, the Caymans, and Cuba, which vary in the 

 same manner having the white on the quills both covered and 

 exposed. 



The difference between M. orpheus and AL polyglottos are 

 not always well marked. In many cases thev are very close in- 

 deed, in fact I do not know a single character which is absolutely 

 constant whereby they may be distinguished. Some Florida and 

 Texas birds are darker and somewhat larger than any West Indian 

 specimens I have seen, but birds occur on Andros Island, Abaco, 

 and othei's of the northern Bahama Islands which it is difficult to 

 refer to one or the other. We have therefore no alternative but 

 to consider orpheus as a subspecies oi polyglottos. 



Mimus polyglottos orpheus (Linn.). 



Turdus orpheus Lixx. Syst. Nat. I, p. 169 (175S) : //'. p. 293 (1766). 



Mimus polyglottus Gosse, Bds. Jamaica, p. 144 (1S47). 



Mimus orpheus Gray, Gen. Bds. I, p. 221 (1S44). — Cory, Bds. West In- 

 dies, p. 33 (18S9). 



Mimus polyglottus var. cubanensis Bry.vnt, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist, 

 p. 68 (1 866). 



Mimus elegans Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Miis. VI, p. 339 (iSSi). 



Turdus dominicus LiNN. Syst. Nat. I, p. 295 (1766). 



Mimus dominicus CoRY, Bds. Hayti and San Domingo, p. 21 ([885); id. 

 Bds. West Indies, p. 34 (1889). 



Mitnus orpheus var. dominicus Cory, Bds. Bahama Islands, p. 48 (1880). 

 Habitat. — Jamaica, Cuba. Grand Cayman, San Domingo, 



Andros, Abaco, and Inagua, Bahamas. 



The Porto Rico bird is perhaps worthy of subspecific separa- 

 tion, as a majority of the specimens are larger and darker than 



