7 2 Brewster on a Collection of Arizona Birds. 
youngest of these (No. 480, $ ?, Camp Lowell. June 2), although well 
feathered, has the wings and tail undeveloped, and was taken from the 
nest. Its entire upper plumage is rusty brown with a chestnut tinge which 
deepens on the rump and outer webs of the secondaries to decided chest- 
nut brown. The general coloring of the under parts is pale fulvous with 
a strong tinge of rusty chestnut across the breast, along the sides, and 
over the anal region and crissum. The breast is obsoletely spotted, but 
the plumage elsewhere, both above and below, is entirely immaculate. An 
older bird (No. 577, Camp Lowell, June 23) with the wings and tail 
fully grown out, differs in having the back (excepting a narrow anterior 
space bordering on the nape), with the exposed webs and coverts of the 
wings, and a broad tipping on the tail feathers, bright rusty; — while in a 
third of about the same age (No. 614, $ , Camp Lowell, June 28), the 
rusty color, although paler, is uniformly distributed over the entire upper 
surface save upon the wings and tail feathers, which are only edged and 
tipped with that color. This last example is so faintly marked beneath 
that the plumage at first sight appears immaculate ; but a closer inspection 
reveals a few spots here and there among the central feathers of the 
breast. A fourth (No. 487, Camp Lowell, June 3), although apparently 
no older, has the breast and sides spotted more sharply than in any of 
the adults, while the rusty tinge above is chiefly confined to the rump, 
posterior half of the back, and the outer webs of the wing feathers. 
Several of these young birds are so nearly similar to specimens of H. 
bendirei in corresponding stages that they can be separated only with 
great difficulty. The stouter bill and entirely black lower mandible of 
falmeri may, however, always be depended upon as distinguishing 
characters ; and, morever, the pectoral spotting of bendirei is usually (but 
not invariably) finer and sharper,' and the rusty tinge above paler and 
less extended. 
The adults present a good deal of variation, most of which is apparently 
seasonal. Winter specimens have the lower abdomen, with the anal 
region and crissum, rich rusty-fulvous, while the markings beneath are 
similar in character to those of true curvirostris , and the spots equally 
distinct, numerous and widely distributed. With the advance of the 
season, and the consequent wear and tear of the plumage, the spots 
gradually fade or disappear. Indeed some of the June specimens are 
absolutely immaculate beneath, although most of them, like Mr. Ridg- 
way’s types, have a few fai-nt markings on the abdomen. In this condition 
the general coloring is also paler and grayer, and the fulvous of the 
crissum and neighboring parts often entirely wanting. 
But although the evidence of this series tends to demolish several of 
the characters upon which palmeri has been based, enough remain to 
separate it from its ally the true curvirostris of Mexico and the Rio 
Grande Valley in Texas. The best of these, perhaps, is to be found in the 
different marking of the tail-feathers. In curvirostris the three outer 
pairs are broadly tipped with pure white which, on the inner web, extends 
twice as deep, basally, as on the outer ones, and has its boundaries every- 
