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

BIRDS OF AEGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 29
March 27. The small series secured at General Roca came from a
point about 80 kilometers east of the town of Neuquen, the type
locality of the subspecies described as morenoi by Chubb. These
differ from birds from the mouth of the Rio Negro (designated b}
Peters, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 65, May, 1923, p. 287, as type
locality of C. e. elegans), in grayer coloration and in lighter, less
heavy barring of the underparts that tend to become immaculate on
the abdomen. The two birds from Tunuyan, Mendoza, differ from
those from General R.oca in slightly browner coloration, with the
light spots and bars on the upper surface larger, giving a distinctly
more speckled appearance to the back. This same tendency is exhibited
in the juvenile specimen from Victorica, Pampa. Birds from
the three localities, however, may be allocated to morenoi without
violence, giving this form a range extending from the Rio Negro,
in Neuquen and western Rio Negro (probably from the southern
side of the watershed of this stream), north through the plains and
lower Andean foothills to central Mendoza, and east through the
western Pampas to extreme north central Pampa (probably through
San Luis). In San Juan morenoi is replaced by the peculiar pale
Calopezus e. albidus Wetmore,^° while to the northward are found
CaJopezus e. formosus Lillo in eastern Tucuman and northwestern
Santiago del Estero and C. e. intermedins Dabbene and Lillo ^^ in the
Andean valleys of w^estern Tucuman and La Rioja. CalojJesus elegans
elegans is thus confined to eastern and southern Patagonia and
southern Buenos Aires.
An adult male of morenoi from General Roca taken December 2 is
molting and has new feathers of the body plumage appearing on the
back. These new plumes are considerably darker in ground coloi-
than the old feathers, while the light markings are suffused with u
deeper shade of buff, indicating that the dry arid climatic conditions
found in the haunt of this bird induce considerable fading of the
plumage.
The chick (U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 283661) has the ground color of
the head buffy brown, with a line of dull white extending from the
base of the nasal groove backward on either side of the crown down
over the back of the neck. This line has the brown feathers on either
margin tipped with points of black that form a broken border for it.
A well- developed straight crest of 8 or 10 filamentous plumes extends
from the back of the crown ; this is buffy brown in color with
the feathers marked with black below the extremity. Lores buffy
brown extending as a narrow line almost to edge of eyelid ; super-
" Calopezus elegans albidus Wetmore, Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., 1921, p. 437
(San Juan).
"An. Mus. Nac. Hist. Nat. Buenos Aires, vol. 24, July 22, 1913, p. 194.
54207—26 3