SP. CHAR. _Adult male_ (17.227, San José, Lower California, December 15, 1859; J. Xantus). Upper surface dark vandyke-brown, with a faint purplish cast; quills black. Every feather with a conspicuous, sharply defined terminal crescent of pure white. Tail brownish-drab, narrowly tipped with white, and crossed with seven (one concealed) regular bands of dusky; inner webs almost wholly white, the black bands sharply defined and continuous; shafts entirely white. Ground-color of the head, neck, and entire lower parts, pure white; a broad stripe from the eye back across upper edge of the ear-coverts to the occiput brownish-black; white head also sparsely streaked with blackish, these streaks suffusing and predominating medially; nape faintly tinged with ochraceous, and sparsely streaked. Breast with large cordate spots of brown, fainter than that of the back, a medial spot on each feather, the shaft black; rest of lower parts immaculate. Lining of the wing white, strongly tinged with ochraceous; the brown of the outer surface encroaching broadly over the edge. Under primary-coverts with broad transverse spots or bars; under surface of primaries grayish-white anterior to the emargination irregularly mottled with grayish; axillars immaculate. Wing-formula, 2=3, 4–1, 5. Wing, 20.00; tail, 8.80; culmen, 1.35; tarsus, 2.15–1.10; middle toe, 1.90; outer, 1.75; inner, 1.40; posterior, 1.15; posterior outer and inner claws of equal length, each measuring 1.20 (chord); middle, 1.15. “Iris yellow; feet greenish-yellow.” _Adult female_ (290, S. F. Baird’s Collection, Carlisle, Pa., April 17, 1841). Dark brown of the upper surface entirely uniform, there being none of the sharply defined white crescents so conspicuous in the male.[70] Tail brown to its tip, the dusky bands obscure, except on inner webs. On the top of the head, the dusky is more confined to a medial stripe. Pectoral spots smaller, less conspicuous. Under surface of primaries more mottled with grayish. Wing-formula, 3, 2–4–1, 5. Wing, 20.50; tail, 9.15; culmen, 1.35; tarsus, 2.15; middle toe, 1.70. [Illustration: =12013=, ♂. ½ =12013=, ♂. ½ =17227=, ♂. ¼ _Pandion carolinensis._] HAB. Whole of North America, south to Panama; N. Brazil; Trinidad, Cuba, and other West India Islands. Localities: Belize (SCL. Ibis, I, 215); Cuba (CAB. Journ. II, lxxx, nests; GUNDL. Repert. Sept. 1865, 1, 222); Bahamas (BRYANT, Pr. Bost. Soc. VII, 1859); Panama (LAWR. VIII, 63); Trinidad (TAYLOR, Ibis, 1866, 79); Arizona (COUES, Pr. A. N. S. 1866, 49); N. Brazil (PELZ. Orn. Bras. I, 4). In eight out of twelve North American adult specimens, there is but the slightest amount of spotting on the breast; in two of these (4,366, Puget Sound, and 12,014, Oregon), none whatever; in 17,228 (♂, Cape St. Lucas), 2,512 (♂ S. F. B. Carlisle, Pa.), 34,065 (♀, Realejo, Central America), and 5,837 (Fort Steilacoom), there is just a trace of these spots.