438 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The number laid is definitely not more than three: I have seen but one set of 

 four out of a hundred examined. Clutches of three outnumber two in a ratio 

 of approximately four to three. Incubated singles comprise about ten per cent of 

 the total. 



Eggs of the Cape Verdin run through a wide range of sizes, shapes and colors. 

 Many are half again as large as the average and many are fifty per cent 

 smaller. There is the elongated type, one end almost a hemisphere and the 

 other a cone-shaped point. On the other hand it is not rare to find them as 

 perfectly elliptical as the typical humming bird egg. The ground color is green, 

 the markings gray — facts established for us by an oculist with the proper in- 

 struments. The shade of green varies until iilmost blue is reached. 



The great variation in size, as indicated above, is not shown in the 

 series of measurements I have collected, and the 15 eggs of this race 

 I have examined are prac.tically indistinguishable from those of the 

 Arizona verdin. The measurements of 40 eggs average 15.3 by 11.2 

 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 16.7 by 11.0, 

 15.2 by 12.2, 14.2 by 11.1, and 14.7 by 10.2 millimeters. 



In all other respects, plumage changes, food, general behavior, and 

 voice, the Cape verdin does not seem to differ from the Arizona bird. 



PSALTR|IPARUS MINIMUS MINIMUS (Townsend) 

 COAST BUSHTIT 



Plates 65-68 



HABITS 



Almost anywhere in California, except in the desert regions and in 

 higher elevations in the mountains, and at almost any season of the year, 

 except during the breeding season, one may observe jolly bands or 

 loose flocks of these tiny, gray, long-tailed birds drifting through the 

 live oaks and shrubby thickets, uttering high-pitched, twittering notes to 

 keep in touch with each other as they feed. These charming little birds 

 are so widely distributed and so universally abundant in southern Cali- 

 fornia that they form one of the most interesting features in the land- 

 scape, a lively bit of bird life that one never tires of watching. 



Authorities have differed somewhat as to the distribution of the 

 California forms of the bushtit, but I believe it is now understood that 

 this type race occupies a narrow coastal strip from extrem.e southwestern 

 British Columbia southward to the Mexican border, and perhaps beyond, 

 with a wider range in San Diego County, where it is especially abundant. 

 Harry S. Swarth (1914), who has made an exhaustive study of the 

 subject, seems to have shown that only one race, P. in. niinimiis, occurs 

 in southern California, where formerly the inland race, P. m. calijornkus, 

 was supposed to occupy a range in the interior. 



