CHONDE8TE8. 375 



outer ones. The tail is shorter than the wings, and much rounded. The tarsus and 

 middle toe, with its claw, are subequal, and the lateral toes are equal but short. The 

 general colour of the plumage is striated above, the head strongly marked with elon- 

 gated stripes of black and white ; there is an isolated black spot on the chest, as in some 

 species of Pyrgisoma, and the white tips to the tail-feathers extend to all the rectrices 

 except the middle pair. 



1. Ohondestes strigatus. 



Chondestes strigatm, Bw. Phil. Mag. n. ser. i. p. 435 \ 



Chondestes grammaca, Baird^ Mex. Bound. Surv. ii.. Birds, p. 15''; Scl. P.Z. S. 1859, p. 379' j 



1864, p. 174 *j Dresser, Ibis, 1865, p. 488' ; Duges, La Nat. i. p. 140 %• Sumichrast, Mem. 



Bost. Soc. N. H. i. p. 552''; Baird, Brew., & Eidgw. N. Am. B. i. p. 562' (partim) ; Lawr. 



Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. no. 4, p. 22"; Mem. Bost. Soc. N. H. ii. p. 278 '"; Sennett, Bull. 



U. S. Geol. Surv. iv. p. 19"; v. 391 ". 

 Chondestes grammica, Coues, Key N. Am. B. ed. 2, p. 384" (partim). 

 Chondestes grammica strigata, Ridgw. Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. iii. p. 217 "; Belding, Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. 



vi. p. 343 "■'. 



Capite summo castaneo ad frontem nigro, superoiliis efc stria vertical! sordide albis, eorpore reliquo supra fusco, 

 intersoapulio nigro striate, alis et cauda nigricantibus fusoo limbatis, illis sordide albo bifaseiatis, remigibus 

 ad basin qnoque albidis, hujus reotrioibus omnibus (praeter duas n;edianas) albo plus minusve terminatis ; 

 stria per oculos nigra, regione parotica castanea infra albo marginata, parte antiea nigra, macula lunulata 

 sub oeulos alba ; subtus albus, stria utrinque rictali elongata et macula pectorali nigris, eervicis lateribus 

 et hypoohondriis fusoo lavatis ; rostro comeo, mandibula pallida ; pedibus carneis. Long, tota 6"0, alas 3*5, 

 caudse 2-75, rostri a rictu 0-5, tarsi 0-8. (Desor. maris ex Oaxaca, Mexico. Mus. nostr.) 



Hah. North America, from Iowa and Illinois to the Pacific ^ i^, Texas ^ n 12 — Mexico, 

 Nuevo Leon (Couch % Guaymas (Belding ^^), Mazatlan (Grayson ^°), plains of 

 Colima (Xantus^^), Guanajuato (Buges^), valley of Mexico (White% Temiscal- 

 tepec (Bullock ^% State of Vera Cruz (SumichrasP), Puebla (Mus. Brit.), Oaxaca 

 (Boucard^), Chihuitan, Santa Efigenia (Sumichrast^) ; Guatemala, Barranco Hondo 

 (0. S.). 



Swainson described Mexican specimens of this species as Chondestes strigatus, but in 

 a footnote to his paper he alludes to Fringilla grammaca as belonging to the same 

 group ^ Subsequent writers have considered both names applicable to the same species, 

 C. grammaca, until Mr. Eidgway, in 1880, stated that he could detect constant differ- 

 ences between birds from eastern and western America, and that the Mexican bird 

 agreeing with the western that race might bear the name Chondestes grammica strigata'^^. 

 Unfortunately he does not state what these differences consist of. Moreover, Dr. Coues, 

 writing in 1884, omits all mention of C. g. strigata i^. Compared with an adult bird 

 from Illinois, the true C. grammaca, Mexican specimens differ in having a larger bill, 

 the sides of the crown more rufous, the back less densely striated, each streak being 

 narrower, and the fawn-coloured edging of the wings broader. According to our view. 



