274 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Valley, San Bernardino Mountains, on December 28, 1941, with a 

 foot of snow on the ground. Together with their frequent companions, 

 Audubon's warblers and house finches, they rove over the foothill 

 mesas and into the outlying edges of town in small flocks (5 to 15), 

 feeding on insects chiefly, but also at least occasionally on grapes and 

 other berries." 



Mr. Rathbun tells me that in mild winters some of these bluebirds 

 remain about his grounds off and on all winter, investigating his bird 

 boxes, and begin their nest building early in spring. 



SIALIA MEXICANA ANABELAE Anthony 



SAN PEDRO BLUEBIRD 



HABITS 



It seems to be generally accepted now that this subspecies is con- 

 fined in the breeding season to the Sierra San Pedro Martir and the 

 Sierra Juarez in northern Lower California, though Ridgway (1907) 

 mentions a number of bluebirds from upper California, as far north 

 as Mount Lassen, that show more or less the characters of this form. 

 For a critical study of the races of the Mexican bluebird, the reader 

 is referred to an extensive paper on the subject by Ridgway (1894), 

 in which some doubt was cast at first on the validity of this subspecies. 



A. W. Anthony (1889) described this bird and named it for his wife, 

 Anabel Anthony. He gave its subspecific characters as "differing 

 from S. mexicana in slightly larger form, in the bay of the breast, which 

 is divided by the blue of the throat, restricting it to patches on the 

 sides of the breast, and in the almost entire absence of bay on the 

 scapulae." The female "differs from the females of S. mexicana in my 

 collection in the more pronounced blue of the head and larger size." 

 He includes in its range Mount Lassen, Calif., Puget Sound, Utah, 

 and Nevada; this extension of range is probably based on certain 

 specimens from these localities that show some intermediate charac- 

 ters, such as those mentioned below by Ridgway. 



Mr. Ridgway (1907) described the San Pedro bluebirds as "similar 

 to S. m. mexicana, but with bill larger and stouter; blue of upper 

 parts averaging less violaceous (more ultramarine), back more often 

 mixed with chestnut laterally; adult female with back and scapulars 

 grayish brown, forming a definite dorsal patch, distinctly defined 

 against the brownish gray or dull grayish blue of pileum and hind- 

 neck, and, with the grayish brown or brownish gray of throat, breast, 

 etc., paler than in S. m. mexicana." In a footnote he shows the 



