554 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
cc. Pileum light gray passing gradually into the deeper gray of hindneck; gray 
of tail decidedly lighter. (Hawaiian Islands.) 
Megalopterus minutus melanogenys (extralimital).4 
bb. Forehead with a distinct brownish gray or grayish brown area on each side, 
adjoining the dark loral area, the latter dark sooty brown or sooty blackish, 
like checks. (Kermadec Islands.) .....-.-. Megalopterus ——? (extralimital). > 
MEGALOPTERUS MINUTUS ATLANTICUS ¢ Mathews. 
CARIBBEAN WHITE-CAPPED NODDY. 
Adults (sexes alike).—General color plain deep sooty brown, 
blackish brown, blackish fuscous or sooty black, passing, through 
a lighter and grayer hue on hindneck, and neutral gray on nape, into 
immaculate white or grayish white on pileum; lores and space imme- 
diately above eyes black (in strong and abrupt contrast with white 
of forehead and crown), the lower eyelid with a white streak; tail 
and longer tail-coverts (both upper and lower) brownish gray (be- 
tween mouse gray and deep quaker drab) ; bill black; iris dark brown; 
legs and feet dusky brownish. 
Immature.—‘‘ Forehead and crown white; lores white; neck and 
nape sooty black, which throws the white crown into strong relief, 
owing to the absence of any intermediate lead color; mantle, tail, and 
under parts umber-brown, the primaries blackish.’’4 
Young.—‘ Forehead and anterior crown white; lores black; upper 
parts generally umber-brown, with cinnamon borders to the wing- 
coverts and secondaries; primharies blackish; under parts mouse- 
brown. In anolder bird the white is less pure, but extends farther back 
on the crown, and the plumage has a slightly barred appearance.” 4 
Downy young.—“ Forehead and crown dull white, rest of the body 
sooty black.’’¢ 
a Anous melanogenys Gray, Gen. Birds, iii, 1846, 661, pl. 182; Stejneger, Proc. 
U.S. Nat. Mus., xi, 1888, 94 (Niihau, Hawaiian Islands; crit.).— Megalopterus minutus 
melanogenys Mathews, Birds Australia, li, pt. 4, Nov. 1, 1912, 423 (Hawaiian group).— 
Anous hawaiiensis Rothschild, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, no. x, July 4, 1898, p. Ivii; 
Ibis, 1893, 571 (Hawaiian Islands; coll. Tring Mus.); Henshaw, Birds Hawaiian Is., 
1902, 125 (habits).—Micranous hawaiiensis Saunders, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxv; 
1896, 148; Fisher (W. K.), Bull. U. S. Fish Com. for 1903, 16, pl. 3, figs. 9-11 (Laysan, 
etc.; habits); Bryan, Occas. PapersB. P. B. Mus., iv, no. 2, 1908, 47 [137] (Molokai).— 
M [icranous] hawatiensis Bryan, Key Birds Hawaiian Group, 1901, 9. 
Not having examined a specimen of Micranus diamesus, I am unable to include 
that form in the key. The original description compares it with M. hawatiensis 
(=melanogenys) but at the same time says that it has the pileum ‘‘nearly pure white!” 
6] am unable to place this bird, of which two specimens have been examined. 
They may be the young or immature of one of the known forms, but descriptions of 
younger stages as given by Saunders and others do not at all apply to it. 
¢ Owing to absence of specimens, I am unable to compare this form with M. m. 
minutus. 
4 Saunders, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxv, 1896, 147. Since Saunders included all the 
geographic forms or subspecies, except M. m. hawaiiensis (=melanogenys) under one 
name and description, it may be that the descriptions quoted are from some other form 
of the species. 
