RUFOUS-SIDED TOWHEE 563 



and Vieillot were referring to the bird that breeds in the northeastern 

 United States, although Catesby was more likely to have been familiar 

 with the form occurring in Georgia and the Carolinas. Studies of 

 geographic variation in morphology, migratory behavior, and breeding 

 habits have today documented the propriety of recognizing four sub- 

 species of eastern towhees (Dickinson, 1952). C. G. Sibley's (1950) 

 study of the allied western forms has confirmed their close relation- 

 ship to the nominate eastern stock. 



The four eastern races the 1957 A.O.U. Check-List recognizes are 

 characterized as follows (Dickinson, 1952) : 



P. e. erythrophthahnusj^ihinusieus) . A large, small-billed, vividly 

 colored, red-eyed form, showing a large amount of white on the 

 rectrices. It breeds in the Transition and Upper Austral Zones east 

 of the Great Plains from southern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, 

 and Maine southward through middle North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, 

 and northern Arkansas, and eastward thi'ough middle Tennessee, 

 northern Georgia, and western South Carolina to the Atlantic coast 

 in southern Virginia. 



P. e. rileyi Koelz. A medium sized, large-billed race with variable 

 eye color, and showing less white on the rectrices than its northern 

 relatives. It breeds from western Florida and southeastern Alabama 

 northeastward through southeastern Georgia and South Carolina to 

 central coastal North Carolina. 



P. e. alleni Coues. A small, medium-billed, pale-eyed race, showing 

 very little white in the rectrices. It breeds in Florida from Franklin, 

 Columbia, and Duval counties south to southern Dade County. 



P. e. canaster HoweU. A large, large-bdled, pale race, with variable 

 eye color, showing a medium amount of white on the rectrices. It 

 breeds from eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi northward to 

 southern Tennessee, eastward across northern Alabama and central 

 Georgia and South Carolina to south-central North Carolina, and 

 southward to the Gulf coast from extreme western Florida westward 

 to central Louisiana. 



Authors vary widely in their choice of terms describing the preferred 

 habitat of the rufous-sided towhee. Some areas noted are hedgerows, 

 thickets, brushy hillsides, and "slashings" (E. H. Eaton, 1914); wood- 

 lands and swamps (E. E. Murphy, 1937); dry uplands near edges of 

 woods or high tracts covered with a low brushwood (Baird, Brewer, and 

 Ridgway, 1874b) ; brushy pastures (C. J. Maynard, 1896) ; and "thick- 

 ets of willows, cottonwoods, and young sycamores, where wild sun- 

 flowers, horse-weeds and poke grow rampant, the whole woven 

 together by the interlacing of wild cucumber vines" (A. W. Butler, 

 1898). Forbush (1929) says "He is a ground bird — an inhabitant of 

 bushy land. No other sparrow in New England seems to be so wedded 



646-737— 68— pt. 1 38 



