Hab. Lesser Antilles north to Porto Rico and St. Thomas.
Adult ♂ (52,428, St. Bartholemi; Professor Sundevall). Resembling var. isabellinus in general appearance, but darker, and more heavily barred above; beneath much more spotted. Head above with blackish shaft-streaks and vertex with a patch of rufous; this, however, somewhat restricted. Rufous above, with numerous broad bars of black, these running continuously across and extending anteriorly to the neck; rump even, with a few very small, transversely sagittate specks of the same. Tail crossed by nine perfectly regular and sharply defined narrow bands of pure black, anterior to the subterminal zone, which is about .80 of an inch wide; outer feather white, tinged medially with rufous, barred with black to the base. Black spotting in dark cinereous of the wing very exaggerated in comparison with var. sparverius. Markings beneath very numerous, the sides being thickly marked with large cordate or nearly circular spots of black, these growing larger toward the flanks. The rufous of the breast is about as in var. isabellinus. Wing, 6.80; tail, 5.10; tarsus, 1.40; middle toe, .94; culmen, .53. Wing-formula, 3–2–4, 5, 6–1.
♀ (52,429, St. Bartholemi; Professor Sundevall). Black bands above exceeding in breadth the rufous ones; each feather of the head above with a sharp medial streak of black. Tail with twelve bands of black; outer feather approaching white. Markings beneath pure black, as in the male; their course longitudinal anteriorly, on the sides more circular, transverse on the flanks. Wing, 6.70; tail, 5.00; tarsus, 1.30; middle toe, 1.00; culmen, .53. Wing-formula, 3, 2–4–1, 5.
The male selected for the type is an extreme example; no others have the character of the variety presented in a degree as exaggerated as this specimen. Nos. 362 (♂) and 170 (♀) of the Bryant Collection
from Porto Rico, and No. 36,554 (♂, St. Thomas; Robert Swift), may be taken as more perfect, or rather as average representatives of the variety. These two males are almost exactly similar. They have the back as strongly barred as in the type, and the black spots on the rump are as noticeable; but the tail, instead of being crossed by regular, perfectly continuous, sharply defined bands, has these broader and more broken, being indicated only by spots along the edge; they also decrease in width toward the base. The Porto Rico specimen has very much ashy-white between the two last black bars, this being found on the four lateral feathers; between the next two, on three feathers, etc. The other specimen, however, is destitute of this ashy-white, although the outer web of the lateral feather is pure white,—spotted, however, with black. In the Porto Rico specimen the breast is as deeply ochraceous as in the isabellinus style; but the spots are larger and more numerous even than in any examples of sparverius. A female from here differs from the type only in a few unimportant points, the principal difference being in the markings beneath. In this there is a general ochraceous wash on the lower parts, the markings linear only on the breast, becoming tear-shaped and circular on the sides, and transverse on the flanks; the red patch on the crown is quite extensive. In the whole series the third quill is longest, and the bill is, in all, considerably longer than in any specimen of sparverius excepting those from Florida. Another female from St. Thomas (36,551; Robert Swift) is almost exactly like the one from Porto Rico; the rufous of the crown covers nearly the whole top of the head, and is quite bright. In a series of skins belonging to Mr. Newton, deposited in the S. I. Collection, we find a pair of this variety from the island of St. Croix, W. I. They are perfectly typical examples. The male (“May 2, 1857, B. B.”) has the large black spots of the side transversely cordate; the bands on the tail are broken into spots on edges of the feathers; the female (“s. p. 227, B. 6”) is in nearly all respects like the specimen described.
List of Specimens examined.—Nat. Mus., 7; Bost. Soc., 3; A. Newton, 2. Total, 10.
Measurements.—♂. Wing, 6.20–6.80; tail, 4.50–5.50; culmen, .45–.55; tarsus, 1.50; middle toe, .95. Specimens, 5. ♀. Wing, 6.80–7.10; tail, 5.50–5.75; culmen, .55; tarsus, 1.50; middle toe, 1.05. Specimens, 5.
[66] Falco sparverius, var. cinnamominus. Falco cinnamominus, Swainson, An. Menag. p. 281, 1838. Pœcilornis cinnamominus, Kaup, Monog. Falc. Cont. Orn. 1850, p. 53 (under P. sparverius). Tinnunculus cinnamomeus, Gray, Gen. B. fol. sp. 11, 1844; List B. Brit. Mus. p. 62.—Bonap. Consp. Av. p. 27.—Strickl. Orn. Syn. I, 100, 1855. Tinnunculus (sparverius var.?) cinnamominus, Ridgway, P. A. N. S. Phil. Dec. 1870, 149.
Hab. Chile and Western Brazil.
Adult ♂ (48,821, Valdivia, Chile, January, 1864; Nat. Mus. of Chile, Dr. Philippi, Dir.). Somewhat like var. australis; in fact, resembling this in general appearance. Head above, however, very dark dull plumbeous, with very distinct shaft-streaks of black. Back and scapulars sparsely barred with black, the bars broadest posteriorly. Tail much brighter rufous than the back; continuous rufous to the extreme tip; a very narrow subterminal band of black, .30 of an inch wide, crossing about .55 of an inch from the tip, making the terminal deep rufous, nearly twice as wide as the black; toward the outer feathers the black is thrown into a spot on each web, scarcely touching the shaft; on the lateral feather the black is lacking entirely, the inner web being continuous rufous, the outer paler, inclining to ochraceous-white. Primaries conspicuously white terminally; inner webs white, with transverse bars of dusky; there being on the longest (second) ten spaces of white, these more than twice the width of the dusky bars; lining of the wing creamy-white, with minute streaks of black sparsely distributed. Forehead more hoary than the crown; lores white. Ear-coverts, neck, and entire lower parts, continuous dull white; breast with a few minute black streaks; flanks with more expanded tear-shaped dashes of the same. The “mustache” is very conspicuous, as are also the oral, cervical, and nuchal markings. Wing-formula, 2=3–1, 4. Wing, 7.40; tail, 5.15; tarsus, 1.40; middle toe, .95; culmen, .50. No. 50,944 (Brazil; Sr. Don Fred. Albuquerque) is exactly similar.