2246 The Zoologist — August, 1870. 



are, all of them or most of them, white or whitish in some portion or 

 the whole of their extent ; producing two patches of this colour, not 

 inaptly comparable to the similar patches on the scapulars of 

 Brachyrhamphus Wrangeli, or Collyrio borealis, in size, shape and 

 general appearance. About half the secondaries, the innermost ones, 

 are quite conspicuously white on the tips of the outer web for a fourth 

 or a third of an inch. The forehead and lores, from the base of the 

 bill to the eyes and vertex, are lineated (exactly as in microceros) with 

 sparse, distinct, very slender white setaceous feathers ; none are 

 apparent, among several specimens, behind the eye, or from the 

 commissural angle of the bill. Pallas tersely summed up these points 

 of coloration of the upper parts in saying " Fronte brachiisque albo- 

 notatis ; " and the white about the " arms " is a strong distinctive 

 feature of the species in comparison with microceros. The white of 

 the under parts reaches far around on the side of the neck; on the 

 side of the head it only extends on a level with the commissure ; it 

 does not quite attain the base of the lower mandible, being cut off from 

 the bill by a small blackish lead-coloured area. There are indications 

 of a small whitish spot just above and below the eye, formed of 

 feathers of the ordinary texture. The under wing-coverts are wholly 

 white, except just along the edge of the forearm. The short tibial 

 feathers are dusky gray. Bill black (as nearly as can be determined 

 from the dried specimens), the base, gonys and tip of lower mandible 

 yellowish. Posterior aspect of tarsus, and inferior surface of toes and 

 webs, blackish ; rest of legs and feet a dull undefiuable greenish- 

 dusky (in the dried specimens). 



The changes of plumage of this species are not known ; no other 

 condition than the one above described is represented by the speci- 

 mens in the Smithsonian Institution, and none are contained, as far as 

 known, in any other American museum. No. 21,320 of the Smith- 

 sonian collection, obtained from Capt. John Rodgers' expedition to 

 the North Pacific, collected at Semiavine Straits, by Dr. Wm. Stimp- 

 son, is the one above described. No. 21,321, from the same locality, 

 is a younger bird, but entirely similar to 21,320, except that it has a 

 rather weaker bill, and only slight traces of the white setaceous feathers 

 on the forehead. No. 46,562, collected September 9th, 1866, at 

 Plover Bay, by W. H. Dall, of the Western Union Company's Over- 

 land International Telegraph Expedition, a young bird, as shown by 

 the soft feel of the feathers and other features needless to detail, is 

 referrible, with some degree of doubt, to this species. The scapulars 



