MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 273 



These specimens are separable to some extent into several series, which 

 may be based either upon difference in general size, the character of the 

 bill, or upon coloration; but these several kinds of variation fail to cor- 

 roborate each other. If separated upon differences in size, the two or 

 more series thus separated embrace every combination of the other dif- 

 ferences ; and similar incongruities result when the separation is made 

 upon differences in coloration or other characters. Yet the Massachusetts 

 specimens present among themselves differences as well marked and of the 

 same character as is assumed to distinguish several of the so-called species 

 from the Pacific coast, that have been proposed and adopted by different 

 authors. 



Alexander Wilson was the first naturalist who gave any adequate de- 

 scription of the species in question, though the Emberiza sandwichensis of 

 Gnielin unmistakably refers to this bird, and this name having been given 

 long before that of Wilson, should, in accordance with the rule of priority, 

 supplant Wilson's more euphonious and familiar one of savanna. The first 

 supposed species recognized by modern writers after the well-known one of 

 Wilson was the P. alaudinus, described by Bonaparte in 1853, in his notes 

 on the Delattre collection,* from a specimen from California. He says it 

 is not easily distinguished from P. savanna, but differs from it in being 

 smaller, with the bill shorter and slenderer, and in wanting the yellow 

 superciliary line.f Professor Baird redescribed it in his Birds of North 

 America in similar language, and cites under it five specimens, which came 

 respectively from Brownsville, Texas; Tamaulipas. Mexico; Petaluma, 

 Cal.. and Shoalwater Bay. AY. T. lie remarks respecting it as follows: 

 "This species, if really distinct from P. sacanna, differs in the rather 

 smaller size, although the difference is not great, and in the considerably 

 paler colors. The superciliary stripe shows a very faint trace of yellow, 

 especially anteriorly near the bill. In some specimens, as 4342, there is 

 none at all." Bonaparte, in his paper just cited, added another " new 

 species" from Kodiak, Alaska, which he called Passercidus anthinus, and 

 described as follows: " Passercidus anthinus, Bp., ex Kadiak, Am. Ross. 

 Simillimus pr&cedenli, sed rostro eliam graciliore et capite jlavo induto ; 

 subtus alho-rufttcens matjis maculatus." He says it is still smaller and has 

 the bill slenderer even than the other, and that it appears to live farther 

 noi-th. Professor Baird al~<> redescribes this species, and is much more 

 explicit in his account of it. He says : " Similar to P. savanna, but 



smaller Breast and upper part of belly thickly spotted with sharply 



defined sagittate brown spots, exhibiting a tendency to aggregation on the 



* Compte Rendu, Tome XXXVII, p. 918. 



t " Passerculus alaudinus, Bp., ex Wils., mais plus petite sans jaune aux sourcils et 

 a bee plus court et plus effileV' 

 VOL. II. 18 



