Blanquilla, Venezuela Island. 115 
paler and less conspicuous, is almost obscured by a band of 
brown, which in specimens from Jamaica, Florida, and the 
Lesser Antilles exists in a much less conspicuous form, 
so that the blue colour is more noticcable and is altogether 
brighter. 
I have examined a large series of males in the British 
Museum labelled C. passerina, from both the mainland and 
the various Antillean islands, and it would appear that the 
further south one goes the less marked and paler this blue 
patch on the back of the head and neck becomes, and the 
more noticeable the brown discoloration. Thus in C. ter- 
restris and C. pallescens the blue is very bright and there is 
hardly any brown; while in birds from Venezuela, Trinidad, 
and British Guiana the opposite state of things exists. 
The under-tail-coverts of my specimens from Blanquilla 
and Margarita are distinctly hghter in appearance than in 
others—a condition produced by the paler centres to the 
feathers and the broader and nearly pure white margins. 
The greater wing-coverts also, and the outer webs of the 
secondaries, tend to be margined with whitish, and are of a 
lighter brown, producing a distinctly pale appearance in the 
folded wing. 
The bill of this bird varies from orange and orange-yellow 
to yellow at the base. In some females the bill is almost 
entirely black, 
In respect of the colour of the bill in birds of this genus, 
it must be remarked that notes made from dried skins are 
practically worthless. Thus Mr. Chapman (Bull. Am. Mus. 
iv. p. 293) says :-—‘‘ The bird from Eastern North America 
differs from the true C. passerina of Jamaica in haying the 
base of the bill ved instead of yellow.’ Yet a male specimen 
in my collection from Jamaica (1904) has a note on the back 
of the label on the colour of the bill in the fresh state as fol- 
lows: ‘ Bill orange-red, tipped with dark horn.” It 1s now 
brownish horn-coloured; and Gosse, in his ‘ Birds of Jamaica’ 
(1847, p. 311), in describing the Ground-Dove, Chamepelia 
passerina, says: ‘ Beak orange, black at the tip.” Mr. M. J. 
Nicoll also, in a paper on “ Birds from the West Indies” 
12 
