Carriker : List of the Birds of Costa Rica. 889 



722. Sporophila crissalis Carriker. 



Sporophila crissalis Carriker, Ann. Carnegie Museum, IV, April 1, 1908, 301 

 (Buenos Aires de Terraba, August 23, 1907, M. A. Carriker, Jr.; coll. Car- 

 negie Mus.). 



Carnegie Museum: Buenos Aires de Terraba, August 23-27, three 



males (Carriker). 



Adult male (?). — Above dark slate-gray, feathers edged with dull grayish 

 olive, brighter on the lesser and middle coverts, secondaries, and tertials; 

 primaries and primary-coverts sooty-black, the former edged with pale 

 buffy-olive, and with a patch of buffy-white at the base of the innermost, 

 forming a partly exposed speculum; tail sooty-black above, narrowly 

 edged with the color of the back, paler sooty-gray below; sides of head and 

 neck dark olive-grayish, paler than the upper parts; chin and throat and 

 median portion of abdomen white, throat faintly tinged with olive-grayish, 

 band across the chest and the whole of the sides and flanks dull grayish- 

 buffy or buffy-brown; under tail-coverts buffy-white; iris hazel; bill 

 blackish-horn; feet olive-horn. Measurements of type: length (in flesh), 

 126; wing, 61; tail, 40; exposed culmen, 9; tarsus, 12.5 mm. 



Immature male. — Similar to the adult, except that the upper parts are 

 decidedly olive, the slaty bases of feathers not showing; the under parts 

 are also more olivaceous, the throat and center of the abdomen being 

 washed with pale dull olive, while the chest and sides are purer olive, 

 without any of the brownish cast of the adult; the under tail-coverts are 

 deeper buffy; the buffy-white speculum at the base of the primaries is 

 entirely wanting. 



This species is nearest to S. grisea of Panama and northern South Amer- 

 ica, but is distinguished from it by having the crown concolor with the 

 back and not slate-gray, and by the absence of black on the lores, and by 

 having the throat whitish instead of slate-gray as in grisea; the breast also 

 is grayish olive-brown and not white, while the under tail-coverts differ 

 in being buffy instead of white. The bill of crissalis is very heavy, almost 

 matching that of S. corvina, from which it differs only in having slightly 

 straighter lines from base to tip, being less swollen in the median portion. 



The birds seemed to be fairly common about Buenos Aires, but very 

 difficult to secure. They were always seen in small trees or even tall trees 

 in open woodland, and seemed to go in small flocks. They have a peculiar 

 low penetrating note, very hard to locate, and while in a tree they remain 

 perfectly still, so that it is almost impossible to see them. On several 

 occasions I heard them calling but was unable to locate them before they 

 flew away. 



