354 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Medium-sized terrestrial luteridse with long, slender, bill, short tail 

 with pointed i-ectrices, and long legs and toes, the plumage much 

 streaked and barred above, more or less yellow beneath, the lateral 

 rectrices partly white. 



Bill about as long as head (or slightly shorter or longer), narrowly 

 wedge-shaped, acute and depressed at tip, its basal depth about one- 

 third the culmen or a little more, its basal depth slightly less; culmen 

 nearly straight, but faintly convex terminally, straight or slightly 

 depressed in middle, more or less elevated and arched basally, flat- 

 tened, especially between the frontal antise, where distinctly ridged lat- 

 erally; gonjry straight, or slightly concave terminally, slightly shorter 

 than maxilla from nostril; commissure nearly or quite straight to 

 much behind nostril, then strongly and rather abruptly deflexed to 

 the rictus. Nostril ovate, obtusely pointed anteriorly, overhung by 

 a prominent thick horny operculum, its posterior end in contact with 

 feathering of the "frontal antise. Wing moderate or rather short 

 (about three to three and a half times as long as culmen, about two 

 and a half to nearly three times as long as tarsus), its tip rather 

 short (less than length of culmen) but pointed; outermost Cninth) pri- 

 mary equal to or longer than sixth, rarely slightlj' shorter, sometimes 

 longest, the ninth to the sixth longest (these nearly equal); inner web 

 of four outer primaries faintly sinuated; longest tertial projecting 

 decidedly beyond secondaries. Tail short (between two-thirds and 

 three-fourths as long as wing), rounded, the rectrices rigid, narrowed 

 terminally, the two or three middle pairs pointed and more or less 

 acuminate. Tarsus long (much longer than culmen, nearly or quite 

 one-third as long as wing), rather stout, its anterior scutella distinct; 

 middle toe, with claw, decidedly shorter than tarsus; outer toe with 

 claw falling much short of base of middle claw; the inner toe slightly 

 longer, but its claw still not reaching to base of middle claw; hallux 

 longer than lateral toes, slender, its claw decidedly shorter than the 

 digit; all the claws rather slender, not very strongly curved. 



Coloration. — Above brownish, conspicuously streaked and barred 

 with blackish; under parts with more or less of yellow, the sides, 

 flanks, and under tail-coverts streaked with dusky; lateral rectrices 

 partly white; adults with a black shield-shaped or crescentic patch on 

 chest. 



Range. — Temperate and tropical North America; South America 

 north of Amazon Valley; Cuba. (Three species.) 



Examination of a very large series of meadowlarks from that portion 

 of the United States east of the Great Plains, representing prac- 

 tically all parts of that extensive region, reveals a very decided varia- 

 tion in size and coloration according to climatic areas, specimens from 

 the extreme South being decidedly smaller, in all their measurements, 

 and darker in color than those from northern localities. The change 

 is such a gradual one, however, that the satisfactory definition of two 



