516 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



around Tucurinca and Fundacion, along the railway and in the pas- 

 tures. It is rarely seen in shrubbery, preferring the tracts of tall 

 grass, as well as roadsides and waste land generally. 



However greatly Central American birds of this species may differ, 

 as claimed by Messrs. Bangs and Penard (Bulletin Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology, LXII, 1918, 90), we are unable to separate the above 

 series satisfactorily from Cayenne examples. 



495. Sporophila grisea (Gmelin). 



Spermophila grisea Shaepe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XII, 1888, 96 (" Santa 



Marta "). 

 Sporophila grisea Allen, Bull. Am. Mus, Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 166 (Cienaga). 



Twenty-one specimens : Dibulla, Tucurinca, and Fundacion. 



Nearly all of the above are males, which, after making due allow- 

 ance for differences of season, seem to be indistinguishable from 

 specimens .from other sections included in the range of this species. 

 Females vary considerably more than males, but it does not seem pos- 

 sible to correlate these variations with definite geographic areas. In- 

 dividuals with dark bills appear to be immature. 



A Tropical Zone form, apparently common in the brushy pastures 

 and waste lands between Rio Frio and Fundacion, occurring at the 

 latter place in company with S. gutturalis and S. minuta. It was 

 abundant also at Dibulla under the same conditions, although none 

 were taken at either Don Diego or Rio Hacha. 



Sporophila sp. 



Spermophila plumbea Salvin and Godman, Ibis, 1880, 122 (Santa Marta). 



Spermophila ocellata Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XII, 1888, 130 (Santa 



Marta). 

 Sporophila plumbea colombiana Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, 1900, 



166 (Salvin and Godman's reference). 



All of these references are based on one and the same specimen, a young 

 ■bird collected by Simons at Santa Marta on April s. 1879. Without seeing 

 this specimen it would of course be idle to venture an opinion as to its 

 identity, beyond suggesting that it may be S. gutturalis, the female of which 

 resembles the same sex of 5'. bouvronides (" ocellata "), which in turn is very 

 close to 5'. lineola. Even if correctly referred to the latter, it undoubtedly 

 belongs to the race recently discriminated by the writer under the name 

 Sporophila lineola restricta (Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, 

 XXX, 1917, 128). 



