Bangs on Colombian Birds On a Small Collection of Birds from San Sebastian, Colombia Outram Bangs The Gray-Breasted Wood Wrens of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Outram Bangs

Abstract

Asalthe Ducks in'which there is a marked sexual difference in plumage.This post-nuptial plumage ''is mainly restricted to the head, neck, breast and scapulars," and is acquired just prior to the loss of the flight feathers at the regular annual post-breeding moult; it is of dull tints, and rather loose structure, and is worn for only a few weeks, or during the period when the birds are unable to fly, through the loss of the flight-feathers by moult.'*At such a time," says Mr. Stone, ''a dull blended plumage would naturally be important in rendering the bird inconspicuous and thereby protecting it, and such I think is the explanation of this curious molt."Mr. Stone has here for the first time clearly described this temporary post-nuptial plumage and suggested its réle in the economy of the species.As will be noticed later (see p. 186) Mr. Chapman has, independently and almost simultaneously, described this plumage in the King Eider and the Greenland Eider.-J. A. A. Stone on a New Race of Short-eared Owl.-Mr.Stone finds! that a series of Short-eared Owls from Point Barrow, Alaska, in Mr. McIlhenny's collection are much paler than birds from Pennsylvania, and on this basis he has named the Point Barrow birds Aséo accépitrinus mcilhennyt.-Waveko Ne Bangs on Colombian Birds.-Mr.Bangs has recently published two additional papers on the birds of the Santa Marta district of Colombia, based on collections made by Mr. W. W.Brown.The first? relates to a small collection made at San Sebastian, in June and July, 1899, at altitudes ranging from 6600 to gooo feet, on the opposite side of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta from the points where his previous collections were made.The list numbers 29 species, six of which had not been previously taken by Mr. Brown, one of the latter, Acestrura astreans, being described as new.The second paper® relates to the two species of Hexicorhina found to inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of Colombia, namely, the wide-ranging H. leucophrysand H. anchoreta, the latter here described as new, and as living in the higher parts of the mountains, at 11,000 to 12,000 feet, and above the range of H. leucophrys.-J. A. A.