Ridgway.] 316 [February 18, 



amples from tropical America. Centurus carolinus frequently lias 

 the entire lower parts tinged with red, the belly bright scarlet, and 

 the lower part of the head strongly tinged with the same color; the 

 amount of this red tinge is about the same as in the Florida form, but 

 its tint is a pinkish scarlet mixed with salmon-pink, instead of dingy 

 purplish, on a duller ground. Melanerpes erytliroceplialus often has 

 the abdomen strongly washed with salmon-pink, with touches of 

 brighter reddish. In males of Geothlypis trichas the yellow of the 

 lower parts is generally nearly continuous, being seldom interrupted 

 by a large creamy-whitish abdominal area, as is universally the case 

 in specimens from the States along the Atlantic Coast. In this fea- 

 ture they incline decidedly to G. melanops Baird (z=. var. melanops — 

 see Am. Journ. S'ci. and Arts, Dec, 1872) from Eastern Mexico. 

 The quail {Ortyx virginianus) is represented by a style intermediate 

 between that of Southern Florida (var. floridanus Coues) and the 

 common form of the New England and Middle States. Many males 

 have as much black as the Florida birds, but less plumbeous and 

 more rufous. One (No. 961), in my own collection, from Mt. Car- 

 mel, has the black jugular collar almost as wide as in the var. cuban- 

 ensis, from Cuba and the bill is as large as that of any Florida 

 example with which it has been compared. In general size the quails 

 of Southern Illinois average a trifle larger than those from Florida. 



It is somewhat difficult to decide to which district — the Gulf Coast 

 or the Plains — the lower Wabash Valley inclines most in the matter 

 of climatic variation in color, its intermediate geographical location 

 making it rather neutral in this respect. After careful study, how- 

 ever, it has been found that in the birds of the densely wooded portions 

 the Gulf-coast impress is more marked, while on those of the prairies 

 the modifications characteristic of the Plains are more perceptible. 



of var. cestlva never approach the characters of var. cooperi, and it is only in Mid- 

 dle Mexico and on the Upper Rio Grande, that the two begin to intergrade, which 

 they there do just like all other con-specific regional representatives along the line 

 of junction of the provinces they respectively inhabit. (2.) Having seen a suffi- 

 cient number of specimens of both forms, I am prepared to maintain that the char- 

 acters of var. cooperi are as tangible and constant as those of any other geographi- 

 cal form of any American species. Indeed, they are so apparent that the type 

 specimens are labelled in Dr. Coues' own handwriting "P. liepatica" which would 

 seem to suggest that they looked somewhat different to him from P. cestiva. The 

 form was also mentioned under the name of "Pyranga hepatica Swains.," in his 

 " Prodrome of a work on the Ornithology of Arizona Territory " (p. 35). 



The P. cooperi is a large-billed, long-winged, long-tailed race, peculiar to Western 

 Mexico and the Arizona district, and holds an exactly parallel relation to P. (estiva 

 that Myiarchus cooperi of the same region does to M. irritabilis of Eastern Mexico. 



