6 Chapmax, The Seaside Sparrows, [j^ 



Louisiana. Then it appeared that the birds collected by Dr. 

 Fisher at Grand Isle were also referable to this form. These 

 birds, with the Corpus Christi specimens just mentioned, were 

 considered by Mr. Ridgway 1 to represent Fringilla macgillivraii 

 described by Audubon 2 from Charleston, South Carolina, and 

 said later by the same writer to also occur on the coast of Louisi- 

 ana and Texas. 3 This name had previously been synonymized 

 with that of Ammodramus maritimus under the belief that it was 

 based on a specimen of that bird in first plumage. 



The following year Dr. Walter Faxon called attention to the 

 fact 4 that Audubon's description of macgillivraii having been 

 based on specimens from Charleston, South Carolina, a locality in 

 which peninsula was known to occur, the name macgillivraii was 

 obviously applicable to the bird known as peninsula and not to 

 the quite different bird of Louisiana. 



In attempting now to explain the peculiar conditions which 

 this brief summary of current views has set forth, one is at once 

 confronted with the difficulty which has beset all students of 

 these birds, that is, the unusually worn plumage of breeding 

 birds. So greatly does this abrasion affect a bird's appearance 

 that almost the entire range of color variation between mariti- 

 mus and the Louisiana bird, respectively the lightest and darkest 

 members of this restricted group, is shown in Dr. Fisher's series 

 of breeding birds from Grand Isle. Specimens in worn plumage, 

 therefore, must be examined with great care and identified only 

 after the closest comparison. Hence in order to clearly grasp 

 the characters separating these three forms it will be necessary 

 to use non-breeding examples. Thus I have selected a series of 

 fall and early spring 5 birds from Long Island, N. Y., Tarpon 



1 Manual N. A. Birds, 2nd Ed., 1896, App. 602. 

 2 Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 285. 

 3 /to/., IV, 1838, 394. 



4 Auk, XIV, 1897, 3 21 - 



5 It is remarkable, in view of the rapid and extreme abrasion of the plumage 

 of breeding birds, how little the plumage shows the effects of wear and tear 

 during the winter. There is practically no difference between the plumage 

 of -September specimens and those taken early in the following spring. 



