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

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388 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM<br />

January young still in juvenal plumage were found near San<br />

Vicente, Uruguay, while at Rio Negro other young were seen during<br />

the middle of February. A fledgling was taken here on February<br />

17 from an old nest of Pseudoseisura lophotes. The large domed<br />

structures constructed by this species are very durable so that they<br />

re<strong>si</strong>st the weather for a con<strong>si</strong>derable time after the tracheophones<br />

are through with them. Though I searched a number at various<br />

times I did not succeed in finding eggs of the cowbirds.<br />

The call notes of this cowbird are harsh and emphatic, chrut or<br />

check repeated incessantly when the birds are anxious about some<br />

nest <strong>si</strong>te. The males utter a sweet warbling song, a pleasant melody<br />

that has earned the species the sobriquet of mu<strong>si</strong>co, a name well<br />

warranted. Even during the breeding season little bands of baywinged<br />

cowbirds were found in company often voicing their sweetly<br />

modulated whistled song to the accompaniment of the more prosaic<br />

bubbling of Molothrvs honarien<strong>si</strong>s. During winter bay-winged cow-<br />

birds gathered in little bands of 20 to 50 members that frequented the<br />

vicinity of ranch buildings or little open savannas in the Chaco,<br />

where they fed on the ground or rested in close companies in the tops<br />

of low trees. Their brown wings distinguished them ea<strong>si</strong>ly from<br />

other blackbirds.<br />

Young in juvenal plumage are <strong>si</strong>milar to adults, but are faintly<br />

and indistinctly streaked with whitish below, and spotted obscurely<br />

with dusky on crown and back.<br />

ARCHIPLANUS ALBIROSTRIS (VieiUot)<br />

Cas<strong>si</strong>ctis albirostris Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., vol. 5, 1816, p. 364.<br />

(Paraguay.)<br />

The genus Archiplanus Cabanis, with the present species as its<br />

type, has been separated from Cacicus by Miller ^^ on smaller, more<br />

wedge-shaped bill, with culmen and commissure nearly straight,<br />

shorter, more rounded wing tip, with ninth primary shorter than<br />

third, and (usually) better developed aftershaft. Miller has in-<br />

cluded in Archiplanus the species current as Cactus chrysopter-us,<br />

C. chrysonotus^ C. leucorainphus^ and the bird described by Dubois<br />

as Agelaius sclateri. Todd^^ has also recognized Archiplanus as<br />

distinct and has added to it the species previously knoAvn under the<br />

name Airiblycercus solitarius.<br />

With removal of the present species, known in recent years as<br />

Cacicus chrysopterus (Vigors), to Archiplanus its name will become<br />

Archiplanus albirostris Vieillot, a specific name not available<br />

81 Auk, 1924, pp. 463-465.<br />

saproc. Biol. Soe. Washington, vol. 37, July 8, 1924, pp. 114-115.

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