Common Characters. Body anteriorly chocolate-brown; posteriorly tinged with rose-red. Wing-coverts (broadly) and quills edged with the same. Head above light ashy or silvery-gray, as are also the feathers around the base of upper mandible; the forehead and a patch on crown blackish. Throat dusky.
Additional Characters. The chocolate-colored feathers and the secondary quills, sometimes the tail-feathers and greater wing-coverts, edged with pale brownish-white or fulvous; the interscapulars with darker centres. Rose of rump and upper tail-coverts in form of transverse bands at end of feathers, that of abdomen more a continuous wash. Lining of wings and axillars white, tinged with rose at ends of feathers. Feathers of crissum dark brown, edged with whitish, sometimes tinged with rose. Bill generally reddish or yellowish, with blackish tip.
A. Auriculars chocolate-brown.
1. Whole side of head below the eye, including the auriculars, chocolate-brown. Chin not bordered anteriorly with ash. In the breeding-season, head darker and ash wanting. Wing, 4.35; tail, 3.00; bill, .44; tarsus, .72. Hab. Interior regions of North America. … var. tephrocotis.
2. Cheeks, lores, and anterior border of the chin ash-color. Wing, 4.00; tail, 2.80; bill, .44; tarsus, .70. Hab. Colorado and Wyoming Territories … var. campestris.
B. Auriculars ash-color.
3. Wing, 4.30; tail, 3.00; bill, .40; tarsus (?). Chocolate of the breast, etc., light, exactly as in tephrocotis; rose beneath restricted to the abdomen; lores and chin light ash. Hab. Northwest coast from Kodiak to Fort Simpson, east to Wyoming Territory … var. littoralis.
4. Wing, 4.60; tail, 3.40; bill, .40; tarsus, .78. Chocolate very dark, inclining to sepia; rose extending forward on to the breast; lores blackish; chin dusky gray. Hab. Aleutian Islands (St. George’s, Unalaschka, and Kodiak) … var. griseinucha.
A closely allied species[113] from Kamtschatka and the Kurile Island differs mainly in having the nasal feathers as well as the head blackish, but without distinct patch on the top, and the nape rusty, in contrast with the back. It is about the size of L. tephrocotis. This species may yet be detected in the westernmost Aleutians.
Leucosticte tephrocotis,[114] Swainson.