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

30 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
ciliary, beginning behind lores and extending down over sides of
neck white, interrupted by a black bar above center of eye, bordered
by a broken black line above, with a similar line beginning behind
eye ; auricular region deep mouse gray ; stripe below and behind eye
to auricular region buffy brown ; supramalar streak white, extending
from base of bill as a narrow line across lower loral region, broadening
below eye and extending over side of neck; malar streak buffy
brown with a narrow line of black on either side; hind neck and
back buffy brown, the back with many slender white plumes interspersed
among the brown forming white lines, and the brown
feathers tipped with prominent spots of black ; this same coloration
extends over base of wings and flanks where the spots become
smaller; wings vinaceous buff mixed with white; throat, lower
breast, and abdomen dull white, a faintly indicated line of blackish
and buffy-brown spots leading down from lower margin of ramus;
a poorly defined band of vinaceous buff mixed with neutral gray
across breast.
This chick of niorenoi from General Roca is markedly paler than
a chick four days or more older of G, e. elegans from Bahia Blanca.
The latter has the ground color of the down on the crown tawnyolive,
while on the back it is slightly duller than tawny-olive. The
young elegans is more heavily banded across the breast and has
underparts decidedly browner in color. The distinction between
these two young is more decided than in the few adults examined.
The martineta or crested tinamou was observed from a train near
the town of Rio Colorado, Rio Negro, on November 21, while at
General Roca, Rio Negro, the birds were common from November
25 to December 3. Small bands containing from three to six or
eight were encountered among the arid hills lying north of town,
often near the mouths of little valleys that opened out on barren
flats. The birds ranged back and forth in the open thorny scrub,
from the bottoms of the draws to tops of low hills, passing out onto
the flats below or penetrating (pi. 16) inland among the hills. The
flocks were composed mainly of males that were not breeding, some
in a condition of partial molt of the body plumage. The presence
of flocks was betrayed by their curious, three-toed tracks in the sand,
thougli the birds themselves usually hid. As I ranged back and
forth over the low slopes in search, the tinamou finally took alarm,
usually when I had returned the second or third time over ground
where I suspected that they were concealed, and burst out with a
roar of wings like a pheasant, to pass out of sight over the slopes.
Occasionally one, more wary than the others, came out from 40 to
100 meters behind me and dropped at once over the crest of a hill
without offering a shot. The birds rise swiftly from 3 to 6 meters in
the air and then go straight away, perhaps climbing gradually to