THAMNOPHILUS DOLIATUS MEXICANUS Allen.
MEXICAN ANTSHRIKE.
Similar in coloration to T. d. doliatus,[1] but wing averaging much shorter and tail relatively longer.
Adult male. — Above black, the forehead spotted or streaked, more or less, with white, the elongated feathers of crown white (mostly concealed) with a large apical guttate spot of black, the remaining upper parts barred with white (the white bars always much less than half as wide as the black interspaces), the white bars on rectrices and tertials not reaching to shaft (except terminal bar on tertials); sides of head, chin, and throat streaked with black and white, the first with the two colors about equal in amount, the chin and throat with the white usually predominating; rest of underparts broadly and sharply barred with black and white, the bars of the two colors of nearly equal width, except (sometimes) on center of abdomen, where the black bars are narrower; maxilla brownish black, pale grayish blue along tomium; mandible pale grayish blue; iris yellow; legs and feet grayish dusky (grayish blue in life); length (skins), 138-167 (156.5) ; wing, 68.5-78.5 (72.6); tail, 57.5-69 (62.8); culmen, 18.5-20.5 (19.6); tarsus, 25-28 (26.6); middle toe, 14.5-17 (15.5).[2]
Immature male. — Similar to the adult male but plumage more or less strongly suffused with pale ochraceous.
Adult female. — Pileum bright chestnut or rufous-chestnut, paler on forehead; supra-auricular region, hindneck and sides of neck light ochraceous or buffy (sometimes buffy whitish on sides of neck), broadly streaked with black; rest of upper parts plain cinnamon- rufous or tawny-chestnut, usually paler and tinged, more or less, with olive-ochraceous on rump and upper back; a narrow orbital ring of buff or buffy white; loral, suborbital auricular, and malar regions buff or buffy whitish, more or less streaked or flecked with black (most heavily on auricular region); chin and throat pale buff to ochraceous-buff, often more or less streaked (mostly laterally or posteriorly) with black or dusky; rest of underparts ochraceous or ochraceous-buff, deepest on chest and sides, paler on abdomen, where sometimes pale buff; usually the underparts are quite immaculate, but rarely there are indications of dusky bars on breast and tibia, and often more or less distinct blackish or dusky spots or streaks on upper chest; under wing-coverts clear buff or ochraceous- buff, the inner webs of remiges broadly edged with pinkish vinaceous- buff or vinaceous-cinnamon; maxilla dark brown or blackish brown, whitish (in dried skins) along tomium; mandible pale horn color or
dull whitish in dried skins (light bluish gray in life); iris white or
