﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 213 



crossed by wide but indistinct bands of silvery plumbeous ; outer webs 

 of primaries bright silvery-gray, more obscure 01 the inner quills. 

 Tail, pearl-gray, (the middle portion of each feather whitish, the in- 

 ner webs chiefly white,) finely sprinkled at the end and toward base 

 with darker gray ; the shafts pure white for their whole length. Entire 

 head, throat, jugulum and breast quite uniform dark chocolate-brown, 

 or soot-color, the feathers white at extreme bases ; whole abdomen, 

 sides and lining of wings ferruginous-rufous, with shaft-streaks and 

 variously formed spots and bars of dusky ;' flank-plumes similar, but 

 with the dusky markings prevailing ; tibiae dusky, the longer plumes 

 variegated with ferruginous ; tarsal feathers uniform dusky ; lower tail- 

 coverts with exposed ends pale ferruginous, the concealed portion 

 whitish. Whole under surface of primaries anterior to the emargina- 

 tions, pure white, immaatlate ; under surface of tail also uniform white. 

 Wing, 18.80; tail, 10.50; culmen, 1. 10; tarsus, 3.25; middle toe, 

 1.50. 



In general aspect, this specimen bears a close resemblance to the 

 rufous-chested examples of melanistic Buteo borealis (ft. calurus,) the 

 tail being the only very obvious difference so far as colors are con- 

 cerned, though close inspection soon reveals other marked discrepan- 

 cies, most important of which are the bright silver-gray of the outer 

 surface and the immaculate snow-white of the under surface of the 

 primaries. There is little resemblance to the melanistic examples of 

 A. lagopus ( /3. sancti-johannis,) the general color being much too rufous, 

 while the tail is conspicuously different. The great breadth of the 

 gape and other peculiarities of structure only recognizable in A. ferru- 

 ginens, also immediately refer this specimen to that species. 



Scops asio, e. maxwells, Ridgway, MSS. — Mrs. Maxwell's col- 

 lection contains a number of specimens of what is evidently a local 

 form of the common North American Scops asio, representing the op- 

 posite extreme from var. B- kennicotti, * and quite as strongly marked 

 as that form. These specimens and others that I have since seen, all 

 agree in possessing with unusual uniformity the distinctive characters 



* Naming the several marked geographical races of this species 111 the order of their 

 date of publication, they may be arranged in the following sequence : a. asio (Strix 

 asio, Linn., S. N., 1758, 92,) 8 kennicotti [Scops kennicotti, Elliot, Pr. Phila. Acad. 

 1867,69;) y- floridanus {Scops asio, var. Jloridanus, Ridgway Bull. Essex Inst. & 

 Dec. 1873, 200;) y enano [Scops asio, var. enano Lawr., Bull. Essex Inst., Dec. 

 1873, 200, and £. maxwellios, nobis. 



