A History of North American Birds; Land Birds; Vol. 3 of 3Baird, Spencer Fullerton
Science
A History of North American Birds; Land Birds; Vol. 3 of 3
Baird, Spencer Fullerton
Birds -- North America
SP. CHAR. _Adult_ (♀, 120,044, Washington, D. C., Feb., 1859; C.
Drexler). Upper surface plain soft reddish-olive, almost exactly as in
_N. richardsoni_; forehead, anterior part of the crown, and the facial
circle, with each feather with a short medial line of white; feathers
of the neck white beneath the surface, forming a collar of blotches;
lower webs of scapulars white bordered with brown; wing-coverts with a
few rounded white spots; alula with the outer feathers broadly edged
with white. Primary coverts and secondaries perfectly plain; five
outer primaries with semi-rounded white spots on the outer webs, these
decreasing toward the ends of the feathers, leaving but about four
series well defined. Tail crossed with three widely separated narrow
bands of white, formed of spots not touching the shaft on either web;
the last band is terminal. “Eyebrow” and sides of the throat white;
lores with a blackish suffusion, this more concentrated around the eye;
face dirty white, feathers indistinctly edged with brownish, causing
an obsoletely streaked appearance; the facial circle in its extension
across the throat is converted into reddish-umber spots. Lower parts,
generally, silky-white, becoming fine ochraceous on the tibiæ and tarsi;
sides of the breast like the back, but of a more reddish or burnt-sienna
tint; sides and flanks with longitudinal daubs of the same; jugulum,
abdomen, lower tail-coverts, tarsi, and tibiæ, immaculate. Wing formula,
4–3=5–1=8. Wing, 5.40; tail, 2.80; culmen, .50; tarsus, .80; middle toe,
.60.
Seven specimens before me vary from, wing, 5.25 to 5.80; tail, 2.60 to
3.00 (♀). The largest specimen is 12,053 (♀, Fort Tejon, California; J.
Xantus). This differs from the specimen described in whiter face, more
conspicuous white streaks on forehead, smaller, less numerous, red spots
below, and in having a fourth white band on the tail; this, however, is
very inconspicuous. 32,301 (Moose Factory; J. McKenzie), 9,152 (Fort
Vancouver, February; Dr. J. G. Cooper), and 11,793 (Simiahmoo, October;
Dr. C. B. Kennedy) are exactly like the type. There are no authentic
males before me, though only two are marked as females; the extremes of
the series probably represent the sexual discrepancy in size.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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