BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 355 



or more forms becomes a matter of extreme difficulty. The tirst formal 

 separation of a southern form was made by Mr. Outram Ban^s, who 

 named a Florida subspecies Sturnella magna argutula^ all represent- 

 atives of the species from eastward of the range of 8. neglecta^ except- 

 ing those from the peninsula of Florida, being referred to S. magna 

 magna. Mr. Frank M. Chapman has more recently reviewed the 

 subject,- and concludes, regarding the status of S. m. argutiila^ that 

 "if the application of this name be restricted to the isolated Florida 

 bird, it may prove a convenient means of expressing the slight differ- 

 entiation which that form exhibits. If. however, as its proposer sug- 

 gests, it be applied to the Gulf Coast and Mississippi Valley specimens, 

 it will onl}^ result in the confusion which always follows our attempts 

 to definitely name differences which do not deffnitely exist." 



With much the same material as that upon which iVIr. C-hapman ])ased 

 his conclusions, and many additional specimens, I ffnd myself unable to 

 agree with him. In the ffrst place, the Florida birds are not isolated, 

 the range of the species being quite continuous; in the second, the 

 breeding birds from the coast district of Louisiana show the characters 

 of Florida birds carried still farther — that is, they are both smaller and 

 darker; again, breeding birds from the southern portions of Illinois 

 and Indiana (within the limits of the Austroriparian or Lower Austral 

 life-zone) are far more similar in size and coloration to those from the 

 extreme South than they are to those from New I^ngland and the east- 

 ern Middle States. In short, if the species be subdivided at all within 

 the eastern or humid division of the Austral life-zone, the questions to 

 be decided are (1) how many divisions are necessai'v or desirable, and 

 (2) where the geographic line or lines separating their breeding ranges 

 should be drawn. After considering these questions very carefully in 

 all their bearings I have arrived at the conclusion that to recognize two 

 forms, corresponding in their breeding ranges with the Transition and 

 Upper Austral zones on the one hand, and, essentialh% the Lower Aus- 

 tral on the other, would better express the facts. It is true, necessarily, 

 that within each of these two geographic areas there is consideral)le local 

 variation, but this is comparatively insigniffcant. It is also true that 

 Florida specimens are not appreciably different within the Lower Aus- 

 tral and Tropical divisions of the peninsula, respectivel}^ and that 

 specimens from the extreme western portions of the humid division of 

 the Lower Austral zone (in southeastern Texas) are so much different 

 from those of other parts of that faunal area as to merit recognition as 

 a third form, this also extending southward into the Tropical zone in 

 northeastern Mexico; consequently the respective ranges of these two 

 Southern forms do not coincide absolutely with the limits of faunal areas. 



iProc. New England Zool. Club, i, Feb. 28, 1899, 19-21. (The Florida l>irds had 

 previously been referred by ]Mr. Chapman to S. m. mexicana.) 



'A Study of the Genus Sturnella. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., xiii, article xxii, 

 297-320. (Author's edition published Dec. 31, 1900.) 



