I -1883.] 
Barrows on Birds of the Lower Uruguay . 
93 
! tail nearly as in male but duller, and the inner secondaries with narrower 
l( and more yellowish edgings ; white spot on primaries same as in male. 
Upper mandible brown, lower pale yellowish. Length, 4.15 inches; 
extent, 6.65; wing, 2.07; tail, 1.65. 
A male, seemingly immature, yet taken at the same time as the others 
and in breeding condition, has the upper parts precisely like those of the 
female, except that most of the greenish-olive is replaced by brownish- 
olive ; the edgings of inner secondaries are broader and lighter, and the 
rump shows several cinnamon feathers. Below, the color is a mixture of 
pale buff and cinnamon, all the feathers of the chin and throat showing 
hoary tips, while the middle of the belly is nearly pure cinnamon. 
An adult male taken in late summer (Feb, 2, 1880) is not essentially 
different from specimens taken in November and December. The areas 
of color are the same; the white is soiled, the cinnamon pale and dull, 
the ash of head and back has given place to a dirty gray by the wearing 
away of the tips and edges of the feathers, and the inner secondaries have 
lost their light edgings in the same way. 
This diminutive Finch seems to resemble Sforofhila hyfoxantha (Cab.) 
more than any other member of the genus, and it would not be strange if 
a careful comparison of falustris and hyfoxantha in their different plu- 
mages should result in the fusion of the two under one name. As no spec- 
imen of hyfoxantha , however, is at present available for comparison, 
reference to its descriptions alone is possible, and if they are correct there 
can be little doubt of the specific distinctness of the present species. 
Early in February, 1880, two specimens of an unrecognized 
Finch were seen by the writer on the edge of a marsh at Con- 
cepcion where coarse grass is cut for thatching the houses of the 
humbler classes. One of these birds was secured and pronounced 
by Dr. Burmeister of the Buenos Aires Museum to be new to the 
fauna of the region, so far as he was aware. A careful lookout 
for other specimens was kept, but nearly ten months elapsed be- 
fore another individual was taken. 
Resting one hot November noon in the scanty shade of a bush 
on the edge of one of the large marshes which border the lower 
Uruguay, my ear caught the notes of a song which seemed at 
first to be that of the common Goldfinch of the country ( Ckry- 
somitris magellanica ) but which, as it rambled on, developed a 
variety and sweetness far beyond the powers of that bird. An 
attempt being made to approach the bird, however, it developed 
other powers of a more practical and (to me) less satisfactory 
kind, and it was only after a half-mile chase through an indescri- 
bable mixture of land, water, and grass — the latter predomi- 
nating — that a lucky third shot brought it down and a long hunt 
