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

BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 373
the species was still in the north. My only records, therefore, are
those of captives offered for sale as cage birds in the market. Four
males seen in the city of Mendoza in the principal market on March
30, 1921, were almost in full plumage though molting the tails.
Another was seen in a bird store in Tucuman, Tucuman, on April 2.
The bobolink was known in Spanish as charlatan and in the west-
ern Argentina was in vogue as a cage bird.
TRUPIALIS MILITARIS MILITARIS (Linnaeus)
Stttrmts militaris Linnaeus, Mant. Plant., app., 1771, p. 527. ("Terra
Magellanica."
)
The following records were made for the military blackbird :
Coast
of the Province of Buenos Aires, 24 kilometers south of Cape San
Antonio, November 3 to 8 (male shot November 4) ; Lavalle, Buenos
Aires, November 13; General Roca, Rio Negro, November 23 to December
2 (male and female, November 23 and 24) ; Zaj^ala, Neuquen,
December 8 and 9 (male December 9) ; Ingeniero White, Buenos
Aires, December 13; Carhue, Buenos Aires, December 16 (male);
Victorica, Pampa, December 23 to 28; Potrerillos, Mendoza, March
19 to 21 (male, March 19 at El Salto, altitude 1,800 meters) ; Tunu-
yan, Mendoza, March 26 and 28; Concon, Chile, April 25 and 28
(female).
The present species seems to reach its maximum size in the Falkland
Islands, where it is characterized as Trupialis militaris falk-
Jandica Leverkiihn ^^ (one specimen seen, male, wing, 133.5; tail,
97.1; tarsus, 40.5; culmen from base, 37.4 nun.). The bill in this
insular form is especially long and heavy.
Males from the Straits of Magellan (Gregory and Laredo Bays),
vSanta Cruz (Rio Gallegos, and near Rio Coy), central Neuquen
(Zapala) north into Mendoza (Potrerillos and "Mendoza"), seem
to represent typical militaHs militaris, with the wing ranging from
125 to 139.1 mm. Skins from Rio Negro (Paja Alta and General
Roca), Buenos Aires (Bahia Blanca, Carhue, and the coast south
of Cape San Antonio), and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (one skin),
are somcAvhat smaller, as in these the wing runs from 118.6 to
124 mm. With extensive series it may prove expedient to recog-
nize these last as a distinct form for which the name Pezites hrevi-
rosfris Cabanis^^ will be available.
On the coast of Buenos Aires this bird ranged among sand dunes
partly grown with vegetation, where there was more or less shelter
from the winds. In the arid sections of northern Patagonia, as at
General Roca, Rio Negro, it was partial to the vicinity of water, but
"Journ. fur Ornith., 1889, p. 108. (Falkland Islands.)
^''Pezites brevirostris Cabanis, Mus. Hem., pt. 1, 1851, p. 191. (Brazil.)