372 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 
lateral tail-feathers partly white. Young: Colors much duller, and markings less 
distinct ; black mark on chest only faintly indicated. Length, males, about 9.50- 
11.00, females, 8.00-10.00. West on or embedded in ground, in meadows, composed 
of dried grasses, sometimes arched over on top. Hggs 3-7, white, speckled with 
reddish brown, blackish brown, and lilac-gray. 
a. Yellow of throat not encroaching laterally on malar region; color darker and 
browner above, with heavier and more confluent black markings, the flanks 
and under tail-coverts distinctly buffy. 
b'. Larger, with larger bill and smaller feet. Adult male: Wing 4.40-5.00, 
(4.74), culmen 1.20-1.52 (1.29), tarsus 1.54-1.71 (1.63). Adult female: 
Wing 3.954.30 (4.11), culmen 1.0£-1.17 (1.12), tarsus 1.40-1.49 (1.42). 
Eggs 1.09 x .80. Hab. Eastern North America (except Florida ?), west to 
edge of Great Plains, north to Canada. 
501. S. magna (Linn.). Meadowlark. 
6%, Smaller, with smaller bill and larger feet. Adult male: Wing 4.20-4.80 
(4.40), culmen 1.13-1.30 (1.22), tarsus 1.50-1.72 (1.62). Adult female: 
Wing about 3,90-4.10, tail 2.70, culmen 1.05, tarsus 1.50. Hab. Eastern 
and central Mexico and south to Costa Rica; north to southern Texas 
(lower Rio Grande Valley) and southern Arizona; Florida? 
501la. S. magna mexicana (ScL.). Mexican Meadowlark. 
a, Yellow of throat spread laterally over the malar region; color paler and grayer 
above, with black markings less conspicuous, those on tertials and middle 
tail-feathers in form of isolated narrow bars, not connected along the shaft, 
as is usual in magna and mexicana ; flanks and lower tail-coverts white, very 
faintly, if at all, tinged with buff. 
Adult male: Wing 4.85-5.30 (6.01), culmen 1.20-1.36 (1.29), tarsus 1.50- 
1.60 (1.54). Adult female: Wing 4.30-4.60 (4.41), culmen 1,10-1.22 
(1.17), tarsus 1.33-1.43 (1.41). Eggs 1.12 x .81. Hab. Western North 
America, north to British Columbia and Manitoba, east regularly to 
Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas, sparingly to Illinois and Wis 
consin; south through western Mexico. 
5015. S. magna neglecta (Aup.). Western Meadowlark.’ 
Genus ICTERUS Brisson. (Page 366, pl. CIL., figs. 1-3.) 
Species. 
a. Depth of bill at base decidedly less than half the length of the exposed culmen. 
6. Bill not decurved terminally. (Subgenus Jcterus.) 
1 Without much doubt a distinct species. The occurrence of both 9. neglecta and S. magna together in 
many portions of the Mississippi Valley, each in its typical style (the ranges of the two overlapping, in 
fact, for a distance of several hundred miles), taken together with the excessive rarity of intermediate speci- 
mens and the universally attested radical difference in their notes, are facts wholly incompatible with the theory 
of their being merely geographical races of the same species, 
