Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

278 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
black; rest of mandible puritan gray; iris cinnamon drab; tarsus
and toes tea green. In an adult female, also taken on March 6,
the bill resembled that of the immature male; the iris was Hay's
russet; tarsus slightly duller than deep olive buff; toes tea green.
PHACELLODOMUS STRIATICOLLIS STRIATICOLLIS (d'Orbigny and Lafresnaye)
AnumMus striatioollis (1'Okbigny and Lafkesnaye, Mag. Zool., 1838, CI. II,
p. 18. (Buenos Aires.)
When compared with P. rufifrons alone the present species seems
generically distinct, as it carries to extreme development the char-
acters of strongly graduated tail and broadened shafts on the breast
feathers found to a less degree in rufifrons. PhaceUodomus richer,
however, offers such an appearance of transition between the two
that in my opinion Phacelo'scenus Ridgway (for Anumhius striati-
collis d'Orbigny and Lafresnaye) may not be maintained as a
distinct genus.
The subspecies maculipectus Cabanis, as represented by a skin in
the Field Museum from Cuesta de Angama, Tucuman, is
darker above than true st7'iaticoUis.
distinctly
On October 23, 1920, I found several of the present species in a
partly dry, grass grown tidal marsh bordering the Rio Ajo at
Lavalle, Buenos Aires, and collected a pair of adults. Three or
four fed together on the ground, and as I approached climbed into
a low, thorny bush, while others were encountered in thick, long
grass where they were seen only as they flushed and flew with an
undulating flight for a meter or more. At San Vicente, Uruguay,
young birds were fairly common in dense brush on rocky hillsides,
where I collected an immature female on January 25, 1921, and
another (preserved in alcohol) on January 28. The birds scolded
vigorously with rattling call notes but kejDt concealed behind leafgrown
branches. An immature male was shot in a growth of saw
grass in a marsh near Lazcano, Uruguay, on February 5.
The adult birds taken have the plumage worn so that it is harsh
and hard to the touch from the prominence of the shaft tips of the
feathers. Immature specimens in juvenal plumage are less rufescent
on the back and breast, and, though the broadened shafts are evident
on the feathers of head and breast, have the plumage softer than
adults. The rectrices in striaticollis are slightly broader than in
rufifrons.
An adult, when first killed, had the maxilla blackish; mandible and
maxillar tomia, below nostril, gray number seven; iris cream buff;
tarsus and toes neutral gray.