80 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



its nearest neighbor on the south, "but still darker, the back, etc., deep 

 sepia brown, the pileum and hindneck nearly clove brown, the general 

 color of under parts deep vinaceous-cinnamon or fawn color, with 

 streaks on throat and chest broader (those on throat nearly black)." 

 Evidently the colors of the different races of this species become pro- 

 gressively darker and richer as the range extends northward. 



Bernard J. Bretherton (Woodcock, 1902) says: "This species is 

 only met with on a strip of land lying directly along the ocean. Its 

 range is inseparable from the Manzanita bush, and, as far as I know, 

 Yaquina Bay is the limit of its northern range, and it is not found 

 anywhere in our state east of the Coast Range." 



Dr. Mary M. Erickson (1938) has contributed such a full and inter- 

 esting life history of the type race, Chaniaea fasciata fasciata^ that 

 there is practically nothing to be added on the habits of this sub- 

 species and very little on the habits of the other races. 



There are four nests of this wren-tit, with sets of four or three eggs 

 each, in the Thayer collection in Cambridge. One was placed in a 

 maple bush, one in a salmonberry bush, one in a huckleberry, and one 

 in a myrtle bush. They are all neat and compactly woven baskets, 

 deeply hollowed and with the rims curved inward at the top. They 

 are made of a variety of plant fibers, w^ed stalks, and weed blossoms, 

 bound together with strips of grapevine bark, fine grasses, cattle hair, 

 and spider webs; the lining consists of still finer grass and much 

 horsehair or cowhair. One nest has considerable green moss worked 

 into the rim. Externally they measure about 3 inches in height and 

 about the same in diameter; the inner cavity is about 2 inches in 

 diameter at the top and about ly^ inches in depth. 



The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the other races of the 

 species. They vary in shape from ovate to short-ovate and have only 

 a slight gloss. The color varies from "pale glaucous blue" to bluish 

 white, and they are immaculate. The measurements of 24 eggs average 

 18.6 by 14.1 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 21.4 by 14.0, 17.8 by 14.7, 17.4 by 14.3, and 17.8 by 13.5 millimeters. 



CHAMAEA FASCIATA RUFULA Ridgway 

 RUDDY WREN-TIT 



HABITS 



Farther south along the coast of California, from Del Norte County 

 south to Santa Cruz County, in the humid coast strip, is the range of 

 the ruddy wren-tit. This race is not so dark as the coast wren-tit, but 

 it is darker and more richly colored than the type race, Gambel's 

 wren-tit, of the San Francisco Bay region. Ridgway (1904) char- 

 acterizes it as "similar to C. f. fasciata^ but more richly colored, the 

 general color of under parts deep pinkish cinnamon or dull vinaceous- 



