BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 399 



Genus OREOSPIZA Ridgway. 



Chlorura (not Chlorurus Swainson) Sclatee, Cat. Am. Birds, Aug. 17, 1861, 117. 



(Type, Fringilla chlorura. Audubon. ) 

 Oreospiza BiDciWAv, Man. N. Am. Birdy, 2cl ed., 1890, 439. (Type, J-'rinyilln 



chlorura Audubon.) 



Medium-sized terrestrial Fringillidte, with rather long and pointed 

 wings, rather long rounded tail (equal to or exceeding wing), the col- 

 oration greenish above (especially on wings and tail), crown rufous, 

 throat (and other head-markings) and abdomen white, chest and sides 

 gray. (Intermediate, structurally, between PipUo and Zonotrlc/iin.) 



Bill small (exposed culmen less than half as long as tarsus), conical 

 (basal depth about equal to length of gonys, very much greater than 

 basal width); culmen slightly convex terminally and basally, straight 

 or faintly depressed between; gonj^s faintly convex, shorter than 

 length of maxilla from nostril; maxillar}' tomium slightly concave ter 

 minalh', without subterminal notch, then straight to the slight basal 

 deflection, the latter partly concealed by rictal feathers; mandibular 

 tomium faintly convex terminally, then straight, to the faintly toothed 

 sub basal angle. Nostril wedge-shaped (apex foiward), exposed, with 

 broad superior scsale or horny valve. Rictal bristles minute, scarcely 

 obvious. Wing rather long (more than three times as long as the 

 rather long tarsus), rather pointed (eighth to sixth primaries longest, 

 ninth equal to or but little shorter than fourth); primaries exceeding 

 secondaries by nearly two-thirds the length of the tarsus. Tail long 

 (about equal to or exceeding wing), rounded. Tarsus long (nearly 

 one-third as long as wing), its scutella obsolete or very indistinct on 

 outer side; middle toe with claw nearly equal to tarsus; inner claw 

 reaching decidedly, the outer slightly, beyond base of middle claw; 

 hallux much shorter than lateral toes, its claw longer than the digit. 



Coloration. — Adult plain olive-green above, with rufous pileum; 

 throat-patch, malar stripe, supra-loral spot, and belly white; chest 

 ash gray. 



Range. — Mountain districts of Western United States and northern 

 Mexico. (Monotypic.) 



Oreospiza is intermediate between Plpilo and Zonotric/ua, though 

 much nearer the former, with which it agrees in its stout feet with 

 long claws, rounded tail, and form of bill. Its coloration, too, is not 

 so abnormal for Plpilo as has been supposed, every feature of color — 

 rufous cap, white throat, yellow carpal edge, and olive-green upper 

 parts — being shared by some species of that genus, though by none in 

 the same combination. The wing, however, is very different from 

 that of Plpilo, being quite the same in the relative length of the pri- 

 maries as that of Zonotrichia, that of Z. alhicollis being even more- 

 rounded. 



