326 Bowles, The Limicolce of Washington. [july 



season, at least along the California coast south of San Francisco. 

 The species continues abundant along the coast south to Point 

 Conception, where its range ends almost as abruptly as though this 

 promontory were the ' Land's End ' of California, instead of a 

 sharp angle in a continued coast line. 



The cause of this sudden termination of the distribution of 

 Nuttall's Sparrow is not hard to postulate, when we recall that 

 this subspecies has the characters of birds frequenting humid 

 regions. The outer coast of California is swept by moisture laden 

 winds, causing fogs to form continually during the summer on the 

 hills. These winds blow hard across Point Conception almost 

 uninterruptedly during the spring and summer months, but cease 

 just around the Point, where the famously sunny climate of Santa 

 Barbara is encountered, and there the range of Zonotrichia I. 

 nattalli is abruptly terminated. 



THE LIMICOLCE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. 



BY J. H. BOWLES. 



Apologies are seldom in good order when presenting a subject 

 for scientific consideration, but the writer of this paper feels that 

 something of the kind is necessary, perhaps, to justify him for 

 offering the following more or less fragmentary notes. However, 

 this most interesting family of birds has, of necessity, received so 

 little attention in this northwestern corner of the United States 

 that what little has been obtained may seem worthy of placing on 

 record. 



For one reason or another it has seemed best to omit practically 

 all of the older records, the data here given being made up from 

 either the personal observations of the writer, or from specimens 

 concerning which he feels absolutely positive. Unless otherwise 

 specified, all of these notes come from the west, or ocean side, of the 

 Cascade Mountains, the counties of Chehalis, Clallam, Jefferson, 

 and Pacific bordering on the Pacific Ocean itself. Tacoma, in 



