Page:Condor14(4).djvu/39

 July, 1912
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PRESENT STATUS OF THE COLORADO CHECK-LIST OF BIRDS 149 birds in Colorado, phoeticeus to include all the breeding birds of the State, and fortis to include migrants from the north that winter in Colorado. During the last few years large series of blackbirds have been collected in Colorado with a view of settling definitely the status of the several forms in the State. It may be considered as certain that the breeding' bird of southwestern Colorado is neutralis; that the breeding bird of eastern Colorado is different from the breeding bird of the eastern Mississippi Valley and according to the present rulings of the A. O. U. Committee should bear the name of fortis; that most of the wintering birds of eastern Colorado are the same 'form as the birds breeding there, but that if the form arctolegus is recognized (as the present writer believes will eventually hap- pen) it will have to be admitted.to the Colorado list as a rare winter straggler. l.,oxia curvirostra minor. Sclater considers the great bulk of the Colorado red crossbills as belonging to this form, but assigns the breeding birds of south- western Colorado to strickladi and records a pair taken May 22, 1874, in E1 Paso County as the same form. The male specimen mentioned by Sclater has been sent to the Biological Survey for examination and while the dimensions are well within the limits of stricklatdi, they are also not outside the limits Of the large Rocky Mountain form that has been separated as bedirei, but which is considered by the A. O. U. as included under minor. It seems best, then, to consider the pair mentioned by Sclater as large specimens of minor, .which is the connnon resident bird of that part of Colorado. The reference of the breeding birds of southwestern Colorado to stricklandi seems hardly warranted. No specimens are available to settle the matter one way or the other, but the fact that the breeding birds of the mountains of northern New Mexico are not strickla,di is a strong argument against the probable occur- rence of this form as a breeder in Colorado. Astragalinus psaltra arizonae. Astragalinus psaltra mexicono. Both these forms are still retained by Sclater though it has been conclusively proved that they are both color phases due to age. All Co ora:lo Arkansas gold- finches are referable to one form psaltria. Protonotaria citrea. Is admitted to the Colorado list by Sclater on the same evidence that was considered by Cooke as entirely unsatisfactory. Dendroica virens. ,Added to the Colorado list by L. J. Hersey (Auk xxv, 1911, 490) who took a specimen at Barr near Dener, May 20, 1909. Phalaropus fulicarius. Not included by Sclater th)ugh the record has been published (Auk, xxw, 1909, 409) and the specimen still in the collection of the Biological Survey. Aegialitis meloda. Not included by Sclater though specimen was taken by Dawson May 17, 1899, at Julesburg and the record pu ished (Wilson Bulle- tin, v, 1899, 50; Auk xxvI, 1909). lIeleagris gallopavo silvestris. Omitted by Sclater from the Colorado list, where it has held a place since included by Say in 1823. It is true that there is not now in any collection a specimen of the eastern turkey taken in Colorado, nor has a specimen ever been identified as such by a competent ornithologist. The only claim the form has, rests on the assumption that the birds of southeastern Colorado (where the species was very common a hundred years ago) must have been the same as the birds a little to the eastward in Kansas and Oklahoma. As the species is now supposed to be extinct in that part of Colorado it is probable that the matter never can be settled.