CHAEACTEES OF AMPELIS GAEEULUS 461 



to Colorado; irregularly or casually to about 35° (Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona). Only known to breed 

 in America on the Yukon and Anderson Eivers ; believed to do so In the 

 Eooky Mountains at latitude 49° N. (Coites). Scarcely known on the 

 Pacific coast of the United States except in Alaska. 



Ch. SP. — ^ 9 Crisso castaneo, abdomine griseoplumbeo, f route 

 rubescente, alls albo vtflavo notatis. 



S 2 : Generalcolorbrownish-ash, shading insensibly from the clear ash of 

 the tail and its upper coverts and rump into a reddish-tinged ash anteriorly, 

 this peculiar tint heightening on the head, especially on the forehead and 

 sides of the ■head,into orange-brown. A narrow frontal line, and broader 

 bar through the eye, with the chin and throat, sooty-black, not or not 

 sharply bordered with white. No yellowish on belly. Under tail-coverts 

 orange-brown, or chestnut. Tail ash, deepening to blackish-ash toward the 

 end, broadly tipped with rich yellow. Wings ashy-blackish ; primaries 

 tipped (chiefly on the outer webs) with sharp spaces of yellow, or white, 

 or both ; secondaries with white spaces at the ends of the outer webs, 

 the shaits usually ending with enlarged, horny, red appendages. Primary 

 coverts tipped with white. Bill blackish-plumbeous, often paler at base 

 below; feet black. Length, 7 or 8 inches; wing, about 4^; tail, 2^. 



The sexes of this beautiful bird are alike, and the principal variations, 

 aside from mere shade of the body-color, consist in the markings of the 

 wings. In the finest specimens before me, the ends of tho primary q^uills 

 are rich yellow, like the tips of Ihe 



tail-feathers, forming broad firm 

 spaces, in a continuous line when 

 the wing is closed, with narrower 

 ofisets going around the ends of 

 the quills. In less perfect speci- 

 mens, these markings are simply 

 white, are less firm, and do not 

 appear on all the quiUs. The 

 secondaries may or may not show Fi". 49 — "Wing-tips of Ampelit gamdus. 

 the red "sealing-wax" tips, but in adult birds at least probably always 

 show white markings at the ends, and the same is the case with the prim- 

 ary coverts. These wing-markings, with the chestnut orissum, and absence 

 of yellowish on the belly, will always distinguish the species from A. 

 cedrorum, independently of its much superior size. Young: There is an 

 early streaked stage of plumage, exactly corresponding to that described 

 under head of A. cedrorum. 



THIS famous vagabond wandered into literature, with flue 

 "Bohemian" instinct, at so remote a period in the history 

 of ornithology, that it is not easy to determine which was its 

 original nom deplume among the many aliases we find. Tho 

 derivation of each of the names it has borne is, however, well 

 determined. Ampelis, the current name of the genus, applied 

 to this bird by Linnaeus in 1735, is obviously from the Greek 



