BREWSTER: BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 65 
not skin a bird for more than a month. That accounted mostly for the frag- 
ments of some water birds I sent to the Smithsonian.” 
The Pacific Godwit breeds abundantly in Alaska, where it was first found 
by Dall, and afterwards by Elliott, Nelson, and Turner. Mr. Nelson in his 
Report upon Natural History Collections made in Alaska between the years 
1877 and 1881 (pp. 115, 116), gives a good account of its habits, changes of 
plumage, ete. The members of this Alaska colony are supposed to cross the 
Pacific Ocean during migration, and to winter, in company with the birds of 
the same species which breed in the northern portions of eastern Asia, in the 
islands of the Malay Archipelago, Australia, the New Hebrides, Norfolk Island, 
and New Zealand. 
Totanus melanoleucus frazari, subsp. nov.1 
Gray YELLOW-LEGS. 
Totanus melanoleucus (not Scolopax melanoleucus GMELIN) RipGway, Proc. U. S. 
Nat. Mus., V. 1888, 534, footnote (San José; Cape St. Lucas). Betprne, 
_ Ibid., VI. 1883, 351 (s. of lat. 24° 30’). Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d 
ser., II. 1889, 273 (n. of La Paz). 
Subspecifie characters : — Slightly larger than JT. melanoleucus; the bill somewhat 
slenderer, the general coloring much grayer, the white streaks of the nape and top 
of head-broader; the dark streaks of the juguluim, breast and sides of neck and 
the dark bars on the sides of the body fewer, finer and fainter; the sides of the 
head whiter, with less dark mottling. 
Winter plumage : — Male (No. 17,814, collection of William Brewster, San José del 
Cabo, Lower California, October 27, 1887; M. Abbott Frazar). Above light ashy 
gray, the feathers of the back bordered with ashy white ; those of the scapulars 
and wing coverts notched on both webs with brownish white; upper tail coverts 
white with a few dark bars; primaries dark slaty, lighter, and with more or less 
grayish mottling on the inner webs of most of the feathers; tail white, all the 
feathers barred with dusky; the middle feathers grayish with obscure dusky bars; 
under parts pure white, the jugulum, fore part of breast and sides of neck finely 
streaked with obscure dusky ; sides irregularly marked with grayish and dusky ; 
under wing coverts and axillars white with obscure V shaped markings of dull 
slaty ; under tail coverts pure white, with a few narrow dark bars; sides of head 
white with fine, sparse specks of dusky everywhere, excepting over a space extend- 
ing from above the eye to the base of the culmen, where the white is immaculate ; 
a nearly solid patch of dusky on the anterior portion of the lores. Wing, 6.95; 
tarsus, 2.30; length of bill from nostril, 1.86; depth at nostril, .25. 
The bird above described, like all of my twenty or more additional speci- 
mens which unmistakably belong to the same race, is in winter plumage. 
1 Of the several names which have been bestowed on the Greater Yellow-legs 
all appear to relate to the eastern bird, except Totanus chilensis Pututprt, Arch. f. 
Nat., pt. I. 1857, 264 (Chili), which is indeterminable. I have named the new bird 
for Mr. M. Abbott Frazar. 
VOL. XLI. — No. 1 5 
