BIRDS — MERGINAE — LOPHODYTES. 
815 
Head with an elongated slender occipital crest. Head and upper part of neck dark green, 
turning to black below and behind. Best of neck and under parts generally cream white. 
Jugulum and sides of neck below light brownish red, streaked with black. Sides of body 
beneath wings sharply undulated transversely with white and black ; the concealed portion of 
back mottled with black and gray. Feathers just before the bend of wing, white, margined 
sharply with black ; the fore part of back, interscapulars, and inner long scapulars, with the 
primary quills, black. Wing coverts, secondaries, outer scapulars, and tertials, white ; the 
wing showing two black bars across the base of the greater coverts and secondaries ; the tertials 
edged externally with black. 
Female with the head and neck above chestnut, tinged above with ashy ; the upper parts 
bluish ash ; the lower white. The white on the wing is confined to the ends of the greater 
coverts and of the secondaries ; their basal portions black. There is no visible dark bar, as the 
coverts have none at their tips, and cover the basal black of the secondaries. The outer tertials 
are whitish, edged externally with black. 
There is not the slightest difficulty in distinguishing the adult male birds of this species from 
M. americanus. The females likewise are very similar, but differ in the specific character of 
the bill. The colors are much the same. The greater coverts in M. serrator lack the terminal 
brown bar, while the black at the base of the secondaries is more extended, often showing 
externally, while in the other the dark bar is on the tips of the greater coverts ; the basal black 
of the secondary quills more concealed. The outer tertials are mostly white, edged externally with 
black, instead of being plain bluish ash. The size is much less. 
List of specimens. 
Catal. 
No. 
Se.x. 
Locality. 
When col- 
lected. 
Whence obtained. 
Collected by— 
Length. 
Stretch 
ofwing3. 
Wing. 
Remarks. 
311 
8679 
6902 
9883 
9885 
9887 
9884 
s 
3 
April 24, 1841 
Nov. 16,1857 
23.25 
20.00 
33.00 
31.50 
9.00 
Nelson river, II. B.T 
3 
San Francisco 
Bodega, Cal 
Mar. —,1855 
Lt. Trowbridge 
F. A. Szabo 
Eye rings rose red 
LOPHODYTES, Reich. 
Lophodytes, Reich. Syst. Av. 1852, p. Lx. 
Ch. — Bill shorter than the head, black. Serrations compressed, low, short, inserted obliquely on the edge of bill ; the point 
truncated, and not recurved nor acute. Tail more than half the wings. Tarsi short ; half the feet. Head with a much 
compressed, vertical, circular, and erect crest. 
But a single species of this genus is known to naturalists. 
