Wa eee See 
MARCH 24, 1903 Vor. IVi) PES 5=7, 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NEW ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL CLUB 
THE LOUISIANA CARDINAL. 
BY OUTRAM BANGS. 
In a footnote on pages 641 and 642 of his ‘ Birds of North 
and Middle America’? Ridgway gave measurements and some 
account of four male cardinals from Louisiana, suggesting that 
probably the form is a valid subspecies and eventually must be 
recognized. 
A short time ago I received a series of twelve nicely made skins 
of cardinals from Louisiana, collected by A. Allison, F. N. Carruth, 
Jr., and J. N. Carruth; and upon comparing these with ample 
material from other points in eastern North America, I find Ridg 
way’s suggestion to be well founded and the Louisiana race to be 
perhaps the best and most easily recognized of the forms of the 
Cardinals cardinals group, — the group in which the capistrum in 
the female is dull grayish. While most like the form of the Florida 
peninsula, — Cardinals cardinalis floridanus, —the Louisiana car- 
dinal differs slightly in color and measurements, and very much in 
the size of the bill, which is larger than in any of the other races 
of this group. 
The Louisiana bird may be known as 
1 Bull, U. S. Nat. Mus., no. 50, part 1, rgor. 
/\ 
Ji 
