Brewster on a Collection of Arizona Birds. 1 43 
vertex and sides of head and neck nearly pure ; the back faintly tinged 
with olive; the rump and an edging on the tail-feathers, dull olive-green. 
Wings with two nearly confluent bands on the coverts, and the outer 
edges of the inner secondaries, broadly white; outer quills edged more 
narrowly with the same color. Beneath brownish or smoky-white, with 
a mere wash of yellowish on the sides and crissum. Upper eyelid dusky 
brown ; remainder of orbital region, with the lores, ashy-white in decided 
contrast with the nearly clear cinereous of the head generally. Lining 
of wings white. 
Dimensions. Length, 5.20; extent, 8.50; wing, 2.90 ; tail, 2.25; cut- 
in en, .50. 
Habitat. Arizona and New Mexico. 
Four additional specimens offer no variations affecting any of the char- 
acters above detailed. 
In its generally dull, grayish coloration, with little trace of olive or yellow 
shades, this Vireo is curiously like V. pusillus , but the under parts are 
obscured with brownish, while the differences in size and proportions are 
too evident to require detailed comparison. From the smaller, much 
brighter-colored V. kuttoni, which is unmistakably its nearest United States 
relative, it may be distinguished by the following diagnoses. 
V. kuttoni. — Wing, 2.28 to 2.37. Olive-green above and olivaceous- 
yellowish beneath. No clear white anywhere. 
V. kuttoni stepkensi. — Wing, 2.55 to 2.90. Grayish-ash above with no 
decided olive-green excepting on the rump and tail. Beneath brownish- 
white, untinged with yellowish excepting on the sides and crissum. 
Wing-bands pure white and nearly confluent. 
It will be observed that the above differences are closely parallel to those 
which separate Vireo belli and V . pusillus , while they are in no respect 
less important. Indeed were I disposed to emphasize certain peculiarities 
presented in the wing-formula of my type, it would not be difficult to 
make out an equally good case of specific distinctness, but unfortunately, 
the relative length of the wing-quills (including the spurious primaries) 
proves to be quite as variable in V. kuttoni and its Arizona race, stephensi, 
as I find it to be in V. pusillus and V. belli , and, I might add, in all closely 
allied species which I have so far studied. In short, I am convinced that 
this feature, if ever of any diagnostic value, is so with only a small pro- 
portion of the birds to which it has been so freely and confidently applied. 
In naming this Vireo after its discoverer, Mr. F. Stephens, I have paid 
but a deserved compliment to that gentleman’s zeal and energy as a field 
ornithologist. He notes the bird as “not uncommon in scrub-oaks” among 
both the Chiricahua and Santa Rita Mountains. He also wyites me that 
he has taken specimens in New Mexico, where, near Fort Bayard, a nest 
with four eggs was obtained in 1876. In both Territories it seems to be 
confined to the mountain ranges, where it undoubtedly breeds in all suit- 
able localities. 
