186 Grinnell, Status of the "San Francisco Titmouse." [April 



They are labelled as follows: Oceanodroma melania, San Benito 

 Island, Lower California, July 14, 1897. "c?" and "9" re- 

 spectively, numbers 1770, 1763. 



When at London last year by the kindness of the Hon. Walter 

 Rothschild, I had an opportunity to compare my small so-called 

 O. melania with specimens of 0. monorhis Swinh. from Amuria 

 in the Tring Museum. I found them to be closely allied to 0. 

 monorhis, but differing from it in their much shorter wings, also 

 somewhat shorter tail and bill, and in their darker and less grayish 

 upper parts. 



0. monorhis had not yet been mentioned as occurring in San 

 Benito Island, or elsewhere on the coast of California. The new 

 form as described above is evidently the American representntive 

 of that Asiatic species. 



While participating in the fourth International Congress at 

 London, I had also the good fortune to show my birds to Mr. 

 Frank M. Chapman of New York. Mr. Chapman having satis- 

 fied himself of the distinctness of this new form, I have great 

 pleasure in naming it after a distinguished authority on North 

 American birds. 



THE STATUS OF THE "SAN FRANCISCO TITMOUSE." 



BY JOSEPH GRINNELL. 



Towards the latter part of 1903 a new form of the Plain 

 Titmouse was described 1 under the name Bceolophus inornatus 

 restrictus. It was based upon specimens from a suspiciously re- 

 stricted locality, namely the vicinity of Oakland, California. With- 

 out any apparent hitch the A. O. U. Committee on Nomenclature 

 published 2 its acceptance of the alleged subspecies just nine months 



!Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., XVI, Sept. 30, 1903, p. 109. 

 ! Auk, XXI, July, 1904, p. 418. 



