310 CHAPMAN, New Birds from Mexico and Arizona. fae 
Nest a somewhat compressed compact mass composed externally 
of dried weed- and grass-stalks and dead leaves, many of the latter 
partially skeletonized; internally composed of rather fine weed- 
and grass-stalks, lined with black fibres, apparently dead threads 
of the black pendant lichens (Ramavina, species?) which hang in 
beard-like tufts from button-bushes (Cephalanthus) and other 
shrubs growing in wetter portions of the western bottom-lands. 
The height of the nest is about 34 inches; its greatest breadth is 
about 4 inches, its width in the opposite direction being about 3 
inches. The cavity is about r$ inches deep and 14 X 2 inches wide. 
The eggs are of very regular ovate form, and entirely pure 
white in color, their measurements being as follows: —No. 1, 
0.63 X 0.48; No. 2,,0.64 < 0.49; No. 3, 0.03 X 0-49,——NOBER® 
Ripeway. | 
PRELIMINARY DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW BIRDS FROM 
MEXICO AND ARIZONA. 
BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN. 
THE material on which the following descriptions are based was 
in part secured by the writer during April, 1897. The relation- 
ships of the forms here described will be discussed more fully in 
a subsequent paper. Thanks are due Dr. C. W. Richmond, 
Assistant Curator of the Department of Birds, U. S. National 
Museum, for the loan of specimens of Coccothraustes and Spinus. 
Contopus pertinax pallidiventris, subsp. nov. 
Chars. subsp. — Similar to Contopus pertinax Cab. but with the under . 
parts, especially the centre of the abdomen, whiter, the upper parts 
paler, the crown of practically the same color as the back. Wing, 4.48; 
fA, Bie Aim, (O25 epkp lll, 7c 
Type. — Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., No. 29007, g ad., Pima County, Arizona. 
Collected by W. E. D. Scott, April 22, 1885. 
Cabanis’s type of ferténax was from ‘Jalapa,’ but it is doubtful 
if the species breeds in the immediate vicinity of that city. 
