206 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



tinge on the sides; the back paler bluish, the crown light purplish brown; the 

 outer tail feathers with their outer webs ashy white to the shaft; the secondaries 

 and wing coverts edged and tipped with grayish or rusty white. 



First icinter plumage : — ('Male, No. 14,789, Sierra de la Laguna, November 

 28, 1887). Similar to the young just described, but with the crown deep 

 purplish brown; the back darker or more slaty than in the adult; the wings 

 and tail more bluish; the inner secondaries tipped with ashy white; the outer 

 tail feathers with exceedingly narrow light margins on their outer webs. 



A moulting specimen (Xo. 14,828), taken on July 28, 1887, has the fore- 

 head covered with fresh feathers of the same deep purplish brown as No. 14,789, 

 Avhile the worn and faded feathers on the occiput are those of the nuptial 

 dress, showing that the adult assumes a distinctive autumn plumage. Among 

 the spring adults in my series, however, there is much individual variation in 

 respect to the color of the crown which varies from very pale Isabella to pur- 

 plish brown nearly as deep and rich as that of autumnal birds. 



Like the Ashy Titmouse, Grinda's Bush-Tit is confined to the mountains 

 south of La Paz. It is represented in the northern portions of the Peninsula 

 " from El Rosario northward " (Bryant) by the closely-allied form, P. minimus 

 californicus, the two being separated geographically by a region over four hun- 

 dred miles in width, where no member of the genus is known to occur. Mr. 

 Belding (who discovered both birds in 1883) draws no distinction between the 

 respective vertical ranges of P. i. cineraceus and P. grindce, but Mr. Frazar 

 found that the latter has much the more extended vertical distribution of the 

 two, occurring almost as numerously about Sau Jose del Rancho as on the 

 Sierra de la Laguna. It is a sedentary species, of which each individual bird 

 probably spends its entire life within a very limited area, for Mr. Frazar 

 noticed no marked seasonal variations in the number of its representatives at 

 any of the localities which he visited. 



A nest found on May 24 in the top of a small pine about eight feet above 

 the ground, on the Sierra de la Laguna, is similar in shape to the nests of 

 P. m. californicus and P. pluvibeus. It is nine inches long, with a diameter 

 varving from two to two and one half inches. The entrance hole is in one 

 side near the top. The walls are composed of small, dry leaves, fern-down, 

 catkins, spiders' cocoons, yellowish usnea and grayish lichens, all these mate- 

 rials being felted into a thick, tenacious fabric of a generally mixed brown and 

 grayish color. There were no eggs, the nest being not quite finished when 

 taken. 



Auriparus flaviceps lamprocephalus Oberh.i 



Baird's Verdin. 



Paroides flaviceps {not Aeqithahis flaviceps Scndevall) Baird, Proc. Acad. Nat. 

 Sci. Phila., 1859, 301 (Cape St. Lucas), 304 (crit. ; Cape St. Lucas). 



1 Most of the differences which distinguish this subspecies from true flaviceps 

 were originally pointed out by Professor Baird (Rev. Amer. Birds, pt. I. 1864, 

 85, 86). 



