Vol. XXIV, pp. 251-252 December 23, 1911 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW MELOSPIZA FROM 



CALIFORNIA. 



BY HARRY C. OBERHOLSER. 



A scries of song sparrows from eastern California, in the 

 Biological Survey Collection, United States National Museum, 

 appear to represent an undescribed race. Since several of these 

 specimens were obtained l>y Dr. A. K. Fisher, in Owen Valley, 

 California, during the Death Valley Expedition of 1891,* this 

 new form may appropriately be named 



Melospiza melodia fisherella subsp. nov. 



('liar*. subsp. — Similar to Melospiza melodia heermanni Baird, but larger; 

 upper surface paler, less rufescent; streaks on lower parts less blackish 

 ( more brownish). 



Type. — Adult male. No. 203,507, U. S. Nat. Mus., Biological Survey 

 Collection; Honey Lake, near Millford, California, June 18, 190t>; A. S. 

 Bunnell. 



Description of type. — Upper surface somewhat rufescent hair brown; 

 the crown with broad lateral stripes of burnt umber, and throughout with 

 streaks of clove brown; the back and scapulars broadly streaked with 

 black and burnt umber; the rump and upper tail-coverts somewhat 

 streaked with dark brown ; tail sepia, edged externally with wood brown 

 and dull russet; wing-quills grayish sepia, margined exteriorly with wood 

 brown and dull russet; superior win ^-coverts mostly burnt umber, 

 margined more or less with pale hair brown, the median and greater 

 series and the tertials with terminal shaft markings of black or clove 

 brown; superciliary stripe, auriculars, and sides of neck ash gray, the 

 lirst mentioned paler than the others; postocular and malar stripes burnt 

 umber; entire lower surface, including inferior wing-coverts, dull 

 white, the sides, thinks, and crissum washed with brownish or buffy; 

 breast, jugulum, sides, Hanks, and crissum streaked with burnt umber 

 and clove brown. 



* Recorded by Dr. Fisher (North American Fauna No. 7, 1S93, p. 100) as Melospiza 

 fasciata In < rmanni. 



49— Proc. Biol. Sue. Wash., Vol. XXIV, 1911, (251) 



