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

BIEDS OF AEGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 419
actions. Though the breeding season was past, males sang pleas-
antly at frequent intervals or even on rarer occasions rose in the air
for a flight song.
BRACHYSPIZA CAPENSIS CANICAPILLA (Gould)
Zonotrichia canicapilla Gould, Zool. Voy. Beagle, pt. 3, Birds, 1841, p. 91.
(Port Desire, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego.)
The present form of Brachyspiza was the breeding species at
Zapala, Neuquen, though at General Roca, a few meters lower,
I found the more familiar type with a black streak on either side of
the crown. B. c. canicapiUa was fairly common through the brush
that grew in scattered clumps over the gravelly hills above the town
of Zapala on December 7, 8, and 9, and one specimen was taken on
each of the two dates last mentioned. On December 7 a female
flushed from a nest placed in a depression in the sand under a little
bush and ran rapidly away with lifted wings. The nest was a cup
of grasses and weed stems, lined warmly with small rhea feathers.
The two heavily incubated eggs have a ground color paler than pale
Niagara green, finely dotted with Rood's brown, the dots more or
less confluent in small irregular blotches, heavier about the larger
end, where they are accompanied by minute, scattered spots of black.
The markings in one egg are soft and suffused, in the other bolder
and more restricted. These eggs measure, respectively, 18.5 by 14.4,
and 18 by 14.5 mm.
At Potrerillos, Mendoza, on March 20, 1921, I killed an immature
female of the present race, in company with B. c. cMlensis. I supposed
that it was a migrant from some more southern region. These
records probably mark near the northwestern extension of the range
of canicapilla^ both during the breeding season and in migration.
BRACHYSPIZA CAPENSIS CHILENSIS (Meyen)
Fringilla chilensis Meyen, Nov. Act. Acad. Caes. Leop.-Carol. Nat. Ciu-ios.,
vol. 16, Suppl., 1834, p. 88. (Santiago, Chile."")
At Concon, Chile, this form was common from April 24 to 28, 1921,
and five specimens were taken on April 24, 25, 26, and 27. These
include adult and immature birds all in full fall plumage. Five
additional specimens secured at Potrerillos, Mendoza, in the Andean
foothills, while not wholly typical, are so near chilensis from Chile
as to forbid their separation. The bird was common in this vicinity,
in brushy areas near streams, in the valleys, and along the canyon
walls from March 15 to 21, 1921. Two adult males (taken March 19
and 20) have not quite completed the post-breeding molt. An adult
^ For this reference I am indebted to notes from this publication made by Dr. C. W.
Richmond.