BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 645 



SALPINCTES OBSOLETUS OBSOLETUS (Say). 

 ROCK WREir. 



Adults {sexes alilce). — Above grayish brown or brownish gray 

 (averaging between hair brown and drab-gray''), changing on rump 

 to vinaceous-cinnamon, most of the surface marked with small wedge- 

 shaped spots or short streaks of dusky, terminated by a dot or speck 

 of dull whitish;* middle rectrices grayish brown, barred (more or less 

 distinctly) with dusky; remaining rectrices grayish brown, broadly 

 tipped with cinnamon-buff and crossed by a broad subterminal band 

 of black, the terminal buffy or cinnamomeous band more or less shaded 

 with pale grayish brown and mottled or vermiculated terminally with 

 darker, especially on outermost rectrix, which usually has one or more 

 additional but narrower bands of black and buffy, especially on outer 

 web;'' a rather distinct but not sharply defined superciliary stripe of 

 whitish; a broad postocular stripe of grayish brown, occupying upper 

 portion (sometimes upper half) of auricular region; loral, suborbital, 

 and malar regions and lower portion of auricular region dull white or 

 brownish white, more or less mottled, streaked, or squamated with 

 grayish brown; under parts dull white, passing into pale cinnamon- 

 buff or pinkish vinaceous-buff on flanks, the anal region and under 

 tail-coverts more or less strongly tinged with the same; throat and 

 chest (sometimes breast also) usually more or less streaked with grayish 

 brown or dusky; '^ under tail-coverts transversely spotted or barred 

 with dusky; maxilla dark horn color, with paler tomia; mandible pale 

 (pinkish gray or dull lilaceous in life), becoming more or less exten- 

 sively dusky terminally; iris brown; legs and feet black or blackish 

 brown. 



Young. — Similar to adults, but upper parts faintly and narrowly 

 barred or vermiculated (instead of streaked) with dusky, and lacking 

 any whitish dots or specks; cinnamomeous color of rump immacul3,te; 

 under parts immaculate, the white purer. 



Adult male.— \u&sx^\h (skins), 133.5-154 (140.1); wing, 68-75 (71.3); 

 tail, 50.5-69 (53.9); exposed culmen, 15.5-19.6 (17.8); tarsus, 18.5-23 

 (21.2); middle toe, 12.6-14.5 (13.7). « 



« The color is usually browner in worn summer plumage, grayer in fresh autumn 

 and winter plumage; but the variation is not entirely seasonal. The brownest 

 specimens are broccoli brown or drab. 



* These markings most distinct on pileum, lower back, and hinder scapulars, often 

 entirely wanting on the hindneck, and frequently obsolete elsewhere (at least the 

 whitish dots), except on lower back, etc. 



« Sometimes the outer web is barred for its entire length. 



<i I am unable, from examination of specimens, to discover any correlation in the 

 conspicuous variations in markings of the under parts in this subspecies with sex, 

 locality, or season. 



« Nineteen specimens (none from islands nor Lower California). 



