48 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : ZOOLOGY. 



the party. The description given is based on the material in the British 

 Museum of Natural History. 



From my studies of this material and the allied forms L. sang^t^nolen- 

 tus, Swains, and L. rytirhynchus, Vieill., I am convinced that they are 

 all three specifically distinct. L. rytirhynchus and L. sangtiinolentus do 

 overlap in their geographical distribution, but their differences in size and 

 color readily distinguish them. 



Not touching even the borders of the range of either of the others, 

 L. vigilantis in color closely resembles L. rytirhynclms, but their great 

 difference in size would readily distinguish them, even if they inhabited 

 the same or adjacent regions. The average total length of L, rytirhynchus 

 is about 10.5 inches, while that of L. uigilantis is 15.5 inches. L. san- 

 guinolentus is intermediate between these two in *size, the total length 

 averaging about 12.5 inches, but is essentially different from its two allies 

 in color. 



* 



It would be of great interest to know more of the life history of these 

 birds, especially as to whether they are permanent residents in the several 

 regions where they occur, or if they are migratory. I suspect that the for- 

 mer of these alternatives will prove to be the condition so far as this part 

 of their life history is concerned, and that their extremes represented by 

 L. rytirhynchus on the one hand and by L. vigilantis on the other, are 

 but another example, added to the many already known, of the influence 

 of environment on the descendents from a common stock. 



Genus ORTYGOPS Heine. 



Type. 



Coturnicops, Bp. C. R. XLIII. p. 599 (1856). . . . O. noveboracensis. 



Ortygops (nom. emend.), Heine, in Heine & Reich- 

 enow, Nomencl. Mus. Hein. p. 320 (1890) ; 

 Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. XXIII. p. 126 

 (1894); id. Hand-List Bds. I. p. 104 (1899). 

 Geographical Range. North America: north to Nova Scotia and 



Hudson's Bay, west to Utah and Nevada, the Greater Antilles, eastern 



Mexico. South America : southeastern Brazil ; Uruguay to Patagonia. 



Southeastern Africa. Northern China, to eastern Siberia and Japan. 



