208 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



Regulus calendula (Linn.). 



Ruby-crowned Kinglet. 



Regulus calendula Belding, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., VI. 1883, 347 (Victoria Mts.). 

 Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d ser., II. 1889, 318 (Victoria Mts.) ; Zoe, 

 IL 1891, 198 (Victoria Mts.). 



Although this specie.9 has thus far defied the "hair-splitters" with some 

 success, it does not seem to be entirely free from geographical variation. 

 At least in the series before me it is possible to make out three forms, of 

 which that from the eastern United States is the smallest and most richly 

 colored, that from the Middle Province the largest and grayest, that from the 

 Northwest coast intermediate in size between the other two, and, like many 

 birds from this region, very deeply colored. ^ The differences between extreme, 

 or what may be called typical, examples of these forms are obvious and easily 

 made out, but they do not seem to be sufficiently constant in the birds from 

 any one region to be worth special recognition. It should be mentioned, how- 

 ever, that most of my specimens were taken either during migration or in their 

 winter quarters, and the examination of good series of breeding birds would 

 perhaps lead me to a different conclusion from that just expressed. 



The five specimens collected in the Cape Region by Mr. Frazar were all 

 shot on the Sierra de la Laguna. They belong to the large gray form above 

 mentioned. 



Mr. Belding names the Ruby-crowned Kinglet in his list of mountain birds 

 as "moderately common; from 3,000 feet altitude upward." Mr. Frazar 

 found it only on the Sierra de la Laguna, where he shot a single specimen, 

 a female, on April 27, and saw a number during the last week of November 

 and the first two days of December. Mr. Bryant does not mention meeting 

 it, but states that " on San Pedro Martir Mr. Anthony saw it up to 11,000 feet 

 altitude, and down to the coast in winter and spring," as well as " in the pines 

 the last of April, at 8,500 feet elevation." It is not probable that it breeds in 

 Lower California even at high altitudes. 



The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is merely a winter visitor to the coast districts 

 of California, but it breeds in the Sierras from latitude 38° northward to 

 Alaska. It is common in western Mexico in winter, and goes as far south 

 as Guatemala. 



1 This is probably the form which Dr. Palmer has recently described (Auk, 

 XIV. 1897, 399), from Sitka, Alaska, under the name R. c. grinnelU. According 

 to Dr. Palmer, however, the Sitka bird is smaller, instead of larger, than true 

 calendula. 



