BIKDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 



433 



Immature male. ' — Similar to the adult male, as described, but throat 

 entirely white. 



Adult female. — Similar to the immature male, as described, but 

 smaller and much duller in color, the white everywhere more or less 

 tinged with buffy brownish, the lores wholly pale grayish or grayish 

 white, the auricular region pale buffy grayish margined above by a 

 narrow postocular streak of black; streaks of sides much less distinct, 

 becoming grayish on sides of chest, and flanks strongly tinged with 

 brownish buff; mandible light-colored, dusky at tip; length (skins), 

 109.2-118.1 (113.8); wing, 66-67.6 (66); tail, 45.5-48.5 (46.5); exposed 

 culmen, 10.2-12.2 (11.4); tarsus, 16.3-17.5 (16.8).' 



Young. — Similar in coloration to adult female, but stripes of pileum 

 less sharply defined, the lateral ones duller black; back more strongly 

 tinged with buffy brown; anterior under parts dull light grayish, 

 indistinctly mottled with darker, the sides without streaks. 



Eastern North America, north to upper Mackenzie Valley (Fort 

 Simpson), Hudson Bay (Moose Fort), etc., breeding southward to 

 Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana (St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes), 

 Texas (Medina River), etc. (probably to upper sections of other Gulf 

 States); wintering from the Gulf States southward throughout the 

 West Indies, Mexico (both coasts), and Central America to Colombia 

 and Venezuela; accidental in California (Farallone Islands, May 28, 

 1887; Point Lobos, Monterey County, September 9, 1891; Pasadena, 

 October, 1895), and in the Bermudas. 



IMotadlla] varia LiNN^ns, Syst. Nat., ed. 12, i, 1766, 333 (based on The Small 



Black and White Creeper Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jamaica, ii, 309, pi. 265, flg. 1; 



Le Figuiervarie de S. Domingue Brisson, Orn., iii, 529, pi. 27, fig. 5). — Gmelin, 



Syst. Nat, i, 1788, 979. 

 [Sylvia] varia Latham, Index Orn., ii, 1790, 539. 

 Sylvia varia Bonaparte, Ann. Lye. N. Y., ii, 1826, 81. — Nuttall, Man. Orn. 



U. S. and Can., i, 1832, 384. 



'Possibly also the adult male in winter. 



'' Eight specimens. 



Specimens for the Atlantic coast district have, as a rule, decidedly longer bills than 

 those from the Mississippi Valley, but I am unable to discover any other differences. 

 Average measurements are as follows: 



