BIRDS OF NOETH AND MIDDLE AMEBICA. 



485 



pale wood brown or dull brownish buff; maxilla black or dusky, with 

 paler tomia; mandible dull whitish or pale brownish buft'y (in dried 

 skins); legs and feet pale brownish (in dried skins). 



Young. '^ — Pileum and hindneck plain dark hair Ijrown or dull broc- 

 coli brown; interscapulars dusky brown, with narrow and mostly 

 indistinct shaft-streaks of whitish; rump and upper tail-coverts plain 

 wood brown; otherwise essentially like adults. 



Adult inale.~ljengi\x (skins), 98-109 (104.3); wing, 41-43.5 (42.5); 

 tail, 38-42 (40.2); exposed culmen, 10.5-11.5 (11); tarsus, 17-19 (18); 

 middle toe, 12-13 (12.5).» 



A&ult female. — Length (skin), 106; wing, 42; tail, 39; exposed cul- 

 men, 11.5; tarsus, 18; middle toe, 13.'' 



Eastern Mexico, in State of Vera Cruz (Orizaba; Jalapa), and south- 

 ward through Chiapas (Palenque; Ocuilapa), highlands of Guatemala 

 (Lake of Duefias; summit of Volcan de Agua), and British Honduras 

 (southern pine ridge). 



Cfistothorus elegans Sclater and Salvin, Ibis, 1st ser., i, Jan., 1859, 8 (Lake of 

 Dueflas, Guatemala; coll. Salvin and Godman); 1860, 30 (do.). — Baikd, 

 Review Am. Birds, 1864, 146 (Duefias; Orizaba, Vera Cruz). — Salvin and 

 Godman, Biol. Centr.-Am., Aves, i, 1880, pi. 7, fig. 3. 



\_Cistothorus] elegans Sclater and Salvin, Nom. Av. Neotr., 1873, 7, part. 



C{istothorus] elegans Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Hist. N". Am. Birds, i, 1874, 

 159. 



lOisiothorus stellaris'] b. elegans CouES, Birds N. W., 1874, 36 (synonymy); Birds 

 Col. Val., 1878, 180 (do.). 



a Described from a specimen from Ocuilapa, Chiapas (no. 143068, coll. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus.). 



6 Six specimens. 



" One specimen, from Orizaba, Vera Cruz. 



Specimens from Vera Cruz (Orizaba and Jalapa) compare in average measurements 

 with those from Chiapas (Palenque and Ocuilapa) as follows: 



The material examined is unfortunately scant, but such as it is seems to indicate 

 subspecific difference between the birds from Vera Cruz, on the one hand, and 

 those from Chiapas and Guatemala on the other. Comparing two of the former 

 (an adult male and female) in worn breeding plumage with five of the latter in 

 exactly similar condition, it is found that the two Vera Cruz birds have the pileum 

 and hindneck dull blackish brown or dusky (except the central portion of the fore- 

 head and extreme lower hindneck), while those from Chiapas and Guatemala have 

 the same parts light grayish brown. The single Vera Cruz specimen (from Jalapa, 

 April 15) in unworn plumage, however, has the pileum and hindneck light brown, 

 except along lateral margin; but there is no Chiapas nor Guatemalan specimen in 

 unworn plumage with which to compare it. 



