22 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measm-e 27.2 by 18.0, 

 23.8 by 19.9, and 20.3 by 15.8 millimeters. 



Distribution 



The San Lucas cardinal is resident in the Cape district of Baja 

 California from lat. 27° N. south to Cape San Lucas, including Santa 

 Margarita, Carmen, and San Jose Islands. 



Egg date. — Baja Cahfomia: 1 record, June 27. 



PYRRHULOXIA SINUATA SINUATA (Bonaparte) 



Texas Pyrrhuloxia 



Contributed by Alfred O. Gross 



Habits 



The pyrrhuloxia was first described by Bonaparte (1837) under 

 the name Cardinalis sinuatus. The type specimen was an adult 

 male which was later acquu-ed by the British Museum in 1855. It 

 has a label "W. Mexico Type" and on the reverse side ^'Cardinalis 

 sinusatus No. 3." Later the name was changed to Pyrrhuloxia 

 sinuata Bonaparte (1850). Robert Ridgway (1887b) described two 

 new races, one Pyrrhuloxia sinuata beckhami, the Arizona pyrrhuloxia, 

 with a distribution of southern Arizona and New Mexico, and the 

 form Pyrrhuloxia sinuata peninsulae, the San Lucas pyrrhuloxia, 

 from a type taken at San Jose del Cabo, Lower California, with a 

 habitat in the arid tropical zone of the Cape district as far north as 

 lat. 26°40'. Ridgway (1897), after seeing the original description 

 of Cardinalis sinuatus and discovering that the locality of the type 

 was western Mexico, concluded that the name sinuatus in a constricted 

 sense belongs to the form which he had described as Pyrrhuloxia 

 sinuata beckhami in 1887. The eastern form known by the vernacular 

 name of Texas cardinal was given a new name, Pyrrhuloxia sinuata 

 texana, which according to Ridgway was the true Pyrrhuloxia sinuata 

 with a range that includes the Lower Sonoran Zone from Nueces, 

 Bee, Bexar, Kendall, and Tom Green Counties, Texas, south through 

 eastern Mexico to Puebla. Thus the status of these three forms of 

 the pyrrhuloxia stood until the whole matter was reviewed by A. J. 

 van Rossem (1934a). Van Rossem has shown conclusively that 

 Bonaparte's type specimen is a good example of Pyrrhuloxia sinuata 

 texana Ridgway and that the name Pyrrhuloxia sinuata sinuata 

 (Bonaparte) should be applied to those bii'ds. According to van 

 Rossem, the type of Pyrrhuloxia sinuata beckhami Ridgway, which 

 was taken at El Paso, Tex., is in the same category, since modern 

 skins from the same locality cannot be distinguished from lower 

 Rio Grande birds. Therefore the form Pyrrhuloxia sinuata sinuata, 



