[Apri 
184 OBERHOLSER, Eastern Subspecies of Sttta carolinensis. 
subspecies of the Florida form, are really intermediates between the 
latter and the bird from the northeastern United States. Further- 
more, none of the characters which separate the Florida race from 
that of the northeastern United States are entirely constant. 
Therefore, whether two or three forms be recognized, it is evident 
that all must be considered races of one species. The two forms 
commonly regarded valid—a northern and a southern sub- 
species — interdigitate over a wide area in such a perplexing 
manner that it would be exceedingly difficult to characterize an 
intermediate race; and this consideration, based on a careful 
examination of specimens from the entire eastern range of Sztta 
carolinensis, shows that it is not satisfactory to recognize three 
forms of the species; hence the name Sitta carolinensis atkinsi 
Scott becomes a synonym of Sttta carolinensis carolinensis Latham. 
The Sitta melanocephala of Vieillot! is simply a renaming of 
Sitta carolinensis Latham, and as such becomes a synonym of the 
latter. The Sitta carolensis of Covert? is merely a lapsus calami 
or misprint for Sitta carolinensis Latham, and is, besides, a nomen 
nudum. Mr. Ridgway, however, in his synonymy of Sztta caro- 
linensis*® has given it status as a synonym of Scztta carolinensis 
Latham. x 
Birds from South Carolina, the type region of Sitta carolinensis 
carolinensis, are slightly larger and very slightly paler than birds 
from Florida, and have, in the female, usually more suffusion of 
plumbeous on the pileum; but, as already noted, are very much 
nearer this form than to that of the northeastern United States. 
Birds from Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern 
Illinois, southeastern Missouri, western Arkansas, and eastern 
Texas are intermediate between the Florida bird and that from the 
northern United States, but are on the whole to be referred to the 
former. 
Specimens from the following localities, all of which may be 
regarded as breeding records, have been examined in the present 
connection: 
1 Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., XX XI, 1819, p. 336. 
2 In Chapman’s History Washtenaw Co., Michigan, 1881, p. 175. 
3 Bulletin U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 50, part ITI, 1904, p. 443. : 
