Description.—Above cinereous, wings and tail rather darker; short superciliaries white; beneath pale cinereous; throat white, with a blackish rictal stripe on each side; fore neck slightly tinged with fulvous; middle of belly whitish; lower belly and crissum strongly suffused with fulvous; under wing-coverts pale fulvous; bill black; feet brown: total length 8·5 inches, wing 4·3, tail 4·1. Female similar.
Hab. Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina.
Mr. Durnford found this Saltator “pretty common” near Baradero, on low scrubby ground near water, and afterwards obtained it near Salta. White records it as “very abundant” near Oran.
[46.] SALTATOR AURANTIIROSTRIS, Vieill.
(YELLOW-BILLED SALTATOR.)
Saltator aurantiirostris, d’Orb. Voy., Ois. p. 288 (Corrientes); Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 481 (Mendoza, Cordova, Tucuman, Paraná); Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 26; White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 508 (Catamarca); Barrows, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl. viii. p. 91 (Concepcion); Scl. Cat. B. xi. p. 292.
Description.—Above cinereous, with a slight olivaceous suffusion; head rather darker; sides of head and throat black; superciliary stripe, commencing above the eye, white; beneath pale cinereous mixed with fulvous, a well-marked guttural collar joining the sides of the throat black; ends of the outer rectrices more or less varied with white; bill clear orange; feet greyish brown: whole length 7·5 inches, wing 3·6, tail 3·5. Female similar, less brightly coloured, and with the guttural collar almost or altogether absent.
Hab. Paraguay, Uruguay, and Northern Argentina.
In Corrientes d’Orbigny found this Saltator breeding in the month of November. It frequents the shrubs and bushes in the neighbourhood of the houses, and makes an open nest of roots, not of very neat construction. The eggs are two or three, greenish blue, slightly spotted at the larger end with blackish and reddish zigzag markings. The egg is figured in d’Orbigny’s ‘Voyage’ (pl. xxviii. fig. 3).
White tells us that this species is not uncommon in Catamarca, and Barrows met with it at Concepcion in Entrerios.