80 



has deepened to an intense black color. At this season (from March 

 until the latter part of May), the red is of a peach-blossom-pink tint, 

 only a little deeper in shade than in winter, and the feathers of the 

 pileum have distinctly paler margins. 



In mid-summer, when the bill is uniform deep black, the pale margins 

 to the feathersof the crown, the brown or grayish of tiie plumage becomes 

 more uniform and harsher iu consequence of the wearing and exposure 

 of the feathers, while the red of the male is heightened into an intense 

 crimson, or harsh carmine tint. This condition of i^lumage is charac- 

 teristic of specimens obtained in the breeding-season (June aud July) 

 on Mount Lincoln aud adjoining peaks in Colorado by Mr. Allen and Mr. 

 Batty. 



In the winter-plamage, the males have not been seen. Two or three 

 females, however, obtained in February and the early i)art of March, 

 differ from the spring aud summer examples of that sex in having the 

 bill yellow, tipped with dusky, and the markings very ill-defined in con- 

 sequence of paler borders to all the contour-feathers. 



In this very distinct species, the brown is decidedly lighter and more 

 tawny than in the races of L. tephrocotis, while, unlike that species, there 

 is a conspicuous difference in the coloration of the sexes, a fact sub- 

 stantiated by a series of sixty-nine males and thirty-six females. In 

 the male, the red of the lower parts extends much farther forward than 

 in the other forms, always covering, pretty uniformly, the entire abdo- 

 men and sides, while it frequently invades the breast, or even some- 

 times tinges the throat and cheeks. In both sexes, the pileum is invaria- 

 bly dusky, with a sooty-grayish tinge laterally, becominginsensibly black 

 on the forehead. Compared with the wings, the tail is relatively longer 

 than in the other forms, while the tarsus is, on the average, appreciably 

 shorter. The striking sexual difference exists besides only in L. atrata. 



In a series of sixty-nine adult males in spring and summer plumage, 

 the characters above assigned to the species are exhibited without the 

 slightest variation from the terms of the diagnosis. Although in all of 

 these specimens the brown of the throat has a more or less perceptible 

 purplish tone, in twenty-seven of them the tips of the feathers are 

 touched with a pure purple or bright red (according to the season, pur- 

 ple in winter and carmine in summer) ; one (No. 60027, Mount Lincoln, 

 Colorado, July 15 ; Dr. Hay den — J. H. Batty) has each feather of the 

 whole of the gular and pectoral regions distinctly, though minutely, 

 tipped with carmine ; some specimens have even the posterior scapu- 

 lars tipped with carmine. 



The females differ conspicuously from the males, being always much 

 paler aud duller in colors, the tints inclining to earthy-grayish and the 

 red very much less distinct — often almost wanting. They vary more 

 also than do the males. The greater number of the thirty-six examples 

 before me have the pinkish markings very faint ; many have them al- 

 most obsolete, the whole plumage being nearly uniform grayish-brown, 

 relieved only by the darker front and the whitish edges of the wing aud 

 tail feathers. The few which show the red distinctly have it very much 

 paler and duller than in the dullest males, while the other colors do not 

 approach those of that sex in richness of shades and sharpness of pat- 

 tern. 



On page 22, vol. II of ^'- Zoograpliia Rosso-Asiatica,^^ Pallas describes 

 under the name of " Passer arctoa, (S, 2," a form which, if not identical, 

 is much like this species. The description is as follows : " /?, 2, ibidem 

 Curilica; Capite suprai (pmeter froutem fuscam) cum cervice ferruginea, 

 dorso fusco, plumis margine ferruginescentibus. Subtus fusca, roseo, 



