_Male._ General color uniform lustrous velvet-black, with a greenish reflection. Shoulders and lesser wing-coverts of a bright crimson or vermilion-red. Middle coverts brownish-yellow, or buff, and usually paler towards the tips. _Female._ Brown above, the feathers edged or streaked with rufous-brown and yellowish; beneath white, streaked with brown. Forepart of throat, superciliary, and median stripe strongly tinged with brownish-yellow. Length of male, 9.50; wing, 5.00; tail, 4.15. HAB. United States from Atlantic to Pacific; north to Great Slave Lake, Fort Resolution, Fort Simpson, Fort Rae, etc.; Guatemala (SCLATER, Ibis I, 19; breeding); Costa Rica (LAWRENCE, America, N. Y. Lyc. IX, 104); Bahamas (BRYANT, B. P. VII, 1859); Texas (DRESSER, Ibis, 65, 492); Arizona (COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866, 90; Fort Whipple); Yucatan. There is some variation in the shade of red on the shoulders, which is sometimes of the color of arterial blood or bright crimson. It never, however, has the hæmatitic tint of the red in _A. tricolor_. The middle coverts are usually uniform brownish-yellow to the very tips; sometimes some of these middle coverts are tipped at the end with black, but these black tips are usually of slight extent, and indicate immaturity, or else a transition of hybridism or race to _A. gubernator_. There is also some variation in the size and proportions of the bill. The most striking is in a series of three from the Red River Settlement, decidedly larger than more southern ones (wings, 5.15; tail, 4.40). The bill is about as long as that of Pennsylvania specimens, but much stouter, the thickness at the base being considerably more than half the length of the culmen. One specimen from San Elizario, Texas, has the bill of much the same size and proportions. The male of _A. assimilis_ of Cuba cannot be distinguished from small-sized males of _phœniceus_ from the United States, the females, however, as in nearly all West Indian _Icteridæ_, are uniform though rather dull black. This we consider as simply a local variation of melanism, not indicating a specific difference. A young male is similar, but with the lesser coverts red, tipped with black. On the other extreme, streaked female and young birds from Lower California, Arizona, and Western Mexico are much lighter than in eastern birds, the chin, throat, jugulum, and superciliary stripe tinged with a peculiar peach-blossom pink; not buff, sometimes tinged with orange.