1915.] Chapman, New Colombian Birds. 651. 
Thirty-three adult males in fresh, unworn plumage are more uniformly 
clear slate-gray both above and below, than those in worn plumage. In the 
latter plumage the upper and underparts have a brownish wash and the 
frayed edges to the feathers of the back become grayish. In both fresh and 
worn plumages there is occasionally an indication of black shaft-streaks. 
This occurs in specimens from both Ecuador and Colombia and is possibly 
due to immaturity, since this character is more or less pronounced in the 
plumage of the immature male. I can detect no racial differences in color 
in our series of males from Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Freshly 
plumaged birds from the Paramo of Chiruqua, Santa Marta, being abso- 
lutely matched by freshly plumaged birds from Chimborazo. Similarly, 
males in worn plumage from near Merida agree with males in similar 
plumage from Santa Isabel. 
Not one of the nineteen freshly plumaged adult males in this series 
(Chimborazo, 16; Santa Marta, 3) is as dark, particularly below, as a single 
freshly plumaged male of true wnicolor from Limbana, Peru. This differ- 
ence is marked and apparently of racial value, and, aside from differences in 
size, appears to warrant the conclusion that in representatives of Phrygilus 
unicolor from at least Chimborazo northward, males can be distinguished 
in color from males of true wnicolor. I have seen no females of P. w. unicolor. 
The variations shown by my series of females are much greater than those 
presented by the males. They are attributable to age, fading, and wear and 
occasion such marked differences in color and in pattern of marking that it 
is most difficult to determine the extent and constancy of the limited amount 
of racial variation the series as a whole exhibits. 
Freshly plumaged birds have the brown margins above and whitish 
margins below wider and are less sharply streaked, particularly below, than 
those in worn plumage. Immature birds have the breast more or less 
suffused with buffy and the colors throughout richer. After making due 
allowance for these individual variations, and using also the character of 
size, I can distinguish at least thrée races, the diagnostics and ranges of 
which are given below: 
Phrygilus unicolor grandis subsp. nov. 
Char. subsp.— Larger and with a longer, heavier bill than any known race of the 
species; male paler, particularly on the underparts, which have a whitish cast, than 
the male of P. u. unicolor (Cab.), which is nearly the same color below as above; female 
with the auricular region usually grayish or tinted with buffy instead of dark olive- 
buff as in P. u. geospizopsis (Bonap.); not certainly distinguishable in color from the 
much smaller P. wu. nivarius (Bangs). 
