iSSs.] Scott, Early Spring Notes from Southern Arizona. 35 I 



constantly ringing in the air all about the canon where my 

 home is, and frequently the musician comes on a long piazza in 

 front of my house and, not at all afraid, perches on the rail and 

 creeps on every rafter, stopping constantly to pour out such a 

 flood of music that, familiar as it has become to me, I am always 

 astonished at its wonderful power and liquid sweetness. During 

 that portion of the year when we live with doors and windows 

 open (and this is for fully nine months), the little brown friend 

 with silvery throat is often in the rooms of the house, hopping 

 about and searching every " nook and cranny " for insect life, and 

 betimes singing as merrily as when on the faces of the perpen- 

 dicular rocks in the cailons, which are ever the favorite hunting 

 grounds he delights in. The female sings quite as much as the 

 male. Of the nest in detail I shall have more to say at another 

 time. 



I heard a single bird singing one morning at a high altitude 

 among the pines, which was the onlv note made of its occurrence 

 well within this region. 



Troglodytes aedon marianae, subsp. nov. 



Much lighter colored and grayer throughout than either T. aedon or the 

 so-called var. farkmani, particularly on the anterior half of the upper sur- 

 face, which is in strong contrast with the rest of the dorsal surface. A strik- 

 ing feature is the hoary appearance of the dorsal aspect of the head, neck, 

 and anterior part of the back, caused by conspicuous gray edgings to the 

 feathers. The same hoariness also characterizes the wing-coverts. The 

 subterminal black bars on the feathers of the back are also unusually dis- 

 tinct and heavy. In other respects similar to T. aedon and its varieties 

 parkmani and aztccus. Types, No. 2284 {$ , April 23) and 2307 (§, 

 April 24), Coll. W. E. D. Scott. Named for my wife, Marian J. 

 Scott.* 



* [Eleven specimens of this interesting form, collected April 19-24, are very uniform 

 in character, and are strikingly different from the usual form of House Wren found 

 throughout the West, which, as is well known, is scarcely, or often not at all distin- 

 guishable from the Eastern bird, or aedon proper. While much paler throughout than 

 any western House Wrens I have before seen they are strikingly distinguished by the 

 decided hoariness of the anterior half of the dorsal surface. In size and proportions 

 careful measurements fail to show any differences from ordinary aedon. The wing 

 varies in length from 48 to 52 mm., and the tail from 42 to 49 mm. The tarsus varies 

 from 16 to 19 mm., averaging 17 mm., the culmen from 11 to 13 mm., averaging 12 

 mm. The first primary varies in length from 16 to 23 mm., or from less to more than 

 half the length of the second This shows how little reliance is to be placed upon this 

 character, which has been taken as a basis for separation of the eastern from the west- 

 ern House Wrens, even by so late a writer as Mr. Sharpe (Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. VI 



