352 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ington and Doylestown) ; and central New Jersey (Princeton and Point 

 Pleasant). East to the Atlantic coast in New Jersey, Virginia, North 

 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (Whittier). South to 

 southern Florida (Whittier, Fort Myers, St. Petersburg, and Mulat) ; 

 Louisiana (New Orleans, Bayou Sara, and Alexandria) ; and south- 

 eastern Texas (Houston and San Antonio). West to central Texas 

 (San Antonio, Kerrville, Waco, Fort Worth, and Gainesville) ; Okla- 

 homa (Wichita Mountains, Minco, Tulsa, and Copan) ; and south- 

 eastern Kansas (Independence). 



The range as outlined is for the entire species, which has been 

 separated into four geographic races. The typical Carolina chickadee 

 (Parus carolinensis carolinensis) occupies all the range except Florida, 

 where the Florida chickadee (P. c. impiger) is found, and the extreme 

 western portion from northern Oklahoma south to the coast of Texas 

 occupied by the plumbeous chickadee (P. c. agilis). A northern race, 

 P. c. extimus, is said to range from New Jersey west to Missouri and 

 south to northern North Carolina and Tennessee. 



Casual records. — This species has been recorded as an "accidental 

 visitant" in western New York (Lancaster) ; one was taken at Ecorse, 

 Mich., on July 17, 1899; and a specimen was collected at Keokuk, Iowa, 

 on May 4, 1888. 



Egg dates. — Arkansas: 9 records, April 11 to May 15. 



Florida: 14 records, March 30 to April 27. 



New Jersey: 11 records, April 12 to June 15. 



North Carolina: 12 records, April 8 to May 12. 



Texas: 45 records, Feb. 16 to May 20; 23 records, March 26 to 

 April 20, indicating the height of the season. 



PARUS CAROLINENSIS IMPIGER Bangs 

 FLORIDA CHICKADEE 



HABITS 



The Florida chickadee is a small, dark-c.olored race of the well- 

 known Carolina chickadee. It is fairly common and well distributed 

 over most of the Florida Peninsula, except perhaps the extreme southern 

 part. I have found it almost everywhere that I have been in central 

 Florida, mainly in the live-oak hammocks and around the edges of the 

 cypress swamps. 



Arthur H. Howell (1932) records it also in "open pine timber," and 

 says: "A pair noted on the Kissimmee Prairie was occupying a small 

 palmetto thicket, far from any large timber, a very unusual habitat." 



Nesting. — Mr. Howell says that the nests "are placed in rotten stubs, 



