3^4 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS I ZOOLOGY. 



Lower parts : Upper breast white or nearly white, shading into pink 

 like the remainder of the under surface. The flanks and lower tail-coverts 

 shading into rich carmine of a crimson tone, with the silky character of 

 the feathers of the bend of the wing. Lower wing-coverts and axillaries 

 rosy pink. 



FIG. 185. 



I 



Ajaja ajaja. 8656. Male. Princeton University Collection. ^ natural size. 



Legs and feet pale lake. Iris carmine red. In new breeding plum- 

 age the adult male has a rosy tail, lacks the plumes on the neck and the 

 crimson carmine areas are not so pronounced in color. 



The adult female resembles the adult male in both phases of color, but 

 is smaller in size. 



Immature birds, are much whiter than adults, with only a slight rosy 

 shading and none of the carmine crimson areas indicated. The tail is 

 almost white and the head fully feathered, except immediately about the 

 eye, see cut 186. The shafts of the quills are dusky and the tips of the 

 primary quill dark snuff brown. Legs and feet brownish yellow. Iris 

 hazel brown. 



Birds intermediate in appearance between fully adult and immature are 

 probably those two or three years old, the full plumage being acquired in 

 the fourth annual full moult. 



Geographical Range. North and South America. In North America 

 north to northern Florida, the Gulf States ; in the interior casually to Illi- 

 nois, and Southern California and the Pacific Coast (not recorded recently 

 from the latter regions). Tropical America southward to northern Pata- 

 gonia. Casual in the Falkland Islands. 



