94 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



CHAMAEA FASCIATA INTERMEDIA Grinnell 

 INTERMEDIATE WREN-TIT 



Although this subspecies was originally described and named nearly 

 50 years ago, it has only recently been recognized in the twentieth 

 supplement to our Check-list (Auk, vol. 63, p. 431, 1946) . 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) described it as follows: "Back and 

 upper tail-coverts, sepia, shading into hair brown on nape and top 

 of head. Lores and small spots on upper and lower eye-lids, pale 

 gray. Throat and breast, cinnamon-rufous, fading posteriorly into 

 pale vinaceous-cinnamon on middle of belly. Feathers on breast, 

 with faint dusky shaftstreaks. Sides, flanks and lower tail-coverts, 

 brownish olive. Under wing-coverts and axillars, pale vinaceous- 

 cinnamon. Wings and tail, clove-brown, the feathers with slightly 

 paler edgings." 



This subspecies is clearly intermediate between the dark northern 

 race and the pale southern form. Whether it is wise to recognize 

 intermediate forms in nomenclature is open to serious question. We 

 have no reason to think that it differs materially in any of its habits 

 from other races of the species. Its eggs seem to be indistinguishable 

 from those of the species elsewhere. It has only a limited range in the 

 San Francisco Bay region, except the coastal strip north of the Golden 

 Gate, and southward to Santa Clara County. 



CHAMAEA FASCIATA HENSHAWI Ridgway 



PALLID WREN-TIT 



Plate 20 



HABITS 



The pallid wren-tit is the most widely distributed race of the species. 

 The 1931 Check-list gives its range as the "Upper Austral Zone of the 

 foothills and valleys of interior and southern California from Shasta 

 County south, and along the coast from Santa Barbara County to the 

 Mexican boundary." 



Living as it does in an arid environment, it is also the palest of the 

 California races. Ridgway (1904) describes it as "similar to C. f. 

 fasciata, but decidedly paler, the back, scapulars, rump, etc., grayish 

 brown (deep hair brown), the pileum and hindneck brownish gray 

 (nearly mouse gray or deep smoke gray), and general color of under 

 parts varying from very pale grayish buff to buffy ecru-drab or pale 

 vinaceous-buff, fading to nearly white on lower abdomen." He re- 

 marks in a footnote that "occasional specimens from the southern 

 coast district are nearly as deeply colored beneath as true C. fasciatay 



In spite of its interior habitat, the haunts of this wren-tit seem to 

 be similar to those described under Gambel's wren-tit, for Grinnell and 



