918 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.xxiv. 
PROGNE SUBIS FLORIDANA, new subspecies. 
FLORIDA PURPLE MARTIN. 
Type.—^o. 176800, U.S.N. M. collection. Adult female, collected 
April 1, 1901, at Lake Kissimmee, southern Florida, by Edgar A. 
Mearns. Original number, 12399. 
Chmxictert<. — Smaller than Progne subis subis or P. cryptolettca ; 
females averaging much darker in color; upper surfaces (forehead 
usually included) entirely dark steel blue shaded with violet; under 
surfaces mouse g"ray anteriorly, shading to smoke gray on abdomen, 
whitish in immature females. The coloring of the under parts is fre- 
quently so dark as to obscure the dark shaft streaks; and the sides, in 
old females, are glossed with blue-black. 
Measurements of type {adult female). — Length, 208 mm.; alar 
expanse, 410; wing, 146; tail, 82; chord of culmen, 12; tarsus, 16; 
middletoe with claw, 22.2. See table (pp. 920-922) for comparative 
measurements. 
Geograjyhic range. — Southern Florida; known onlj^ from the St. 
Johns and Kissimmee valleys. 
RemaT\"s and com])arisons. — Females of the resident Florida bird 
are from 5 to 10 mm. less in the wing measurement than those from 
the northeastern United States. The darkest females of floridana 
are without any white below and lack hoary edgings to the frontal 
feathers, in which respects they differ from those from other portions 
of the United States. The younger females from Florida can be 
matched in color by specimens from the District of Columbia, which, 
however, are larger; all females of Progne suhis floridana being 
smaller than the average of Progne suhis suhis from the District of 
Columbia. Both sexes oi floridana are much smaller than the typical 
suhis from the northern interior region (Hudson Bay and the Upper 
Mississippi Valley). In the subjoined table of measurements it is 
probable that the largest males given under flm'idima are really 
migrants of suhis. Mr. Ridgway supposes the extreme phase oiflon'i- 
dana to be mainly confined to the southern extremity of Florida, south 
of the localities at which our specimens were obtained, as there are 
in the series many specimens of intermediate coloration, even among 
breeding birds. The collection in the United States National Museum 
has long contained a typical female of the present form, from the mid- 
dle St. Johns River, marked by Mr. Ridgway, "If not cryptoleuca this 
is a new species. R. R." 
The measurements of the 81 specimens enumerated in the following 
table were all taken by me, on a uniform plan, from fresh specimens. 
Excepting a few from Wisconsin, they show but slight variation in 
size in the three subspecies represented, the rest coming from the 
southern border of the United States, where the species breeds from 
