Vol. VI] SWARTH— RACES OF BEWICK WREN 



11 



from Pacific Slope char ien turns, and believe that they are 

 probably wanderers from the nearby San Bernardino Moun- 

 tains. Midwinter specimens from Palm Springs, at the west- 

 ern edge of the Colorado Desert, belong in a similar class, 

 of winter visitants from the adjacent San Jacinto Mountains. 

 There is available a series of 23 skins from the southern 

 Sierra Nevada, in Tulare and Kern counties. Of these, 14 

 are juvenals, while the nine adults are in midsummer plumage, 

 so frayed and faded as to be of little value for color compari- 

 sons. It is evident, however, that this series is not to be re- 

 ferred to drynwecus, and at present it seems best to include it 

 under charienturus. The young birds are decidedly less red- 

 dish than juvenals of drynwecus, averaging closely similar to 

 young charienturus. The variability shown among them tends 

 toward grayish extremes, certain individuals being even paler 

 colored than the average of eremophihis. The adults closely 

 approach charienturus in similarly worn plumage, and in meas- 

 urements and proportions also approximate this fonn. 



There are at hand, fortunately, three adults in fresh, unworn 

 plumage, taken in December in the Piute Mountains, at the 

 southern extremity of the Sierra Nevada. These birds are 

 unequivocally charienturus, and I believe it is fair to assume 

 that they represent the resident form of this region. Alto- 

 gether the available material is sufficient to justify the state- 

 ment that the wren of the extreme southern Sierra Nevada is 

 not drynwecus. At first it seemed questionable as to whether 

 or not the birds were representative of ercmophilus, which 

 breeds on the east slope of the Sierras a short distance to the 

 northward. The juvenals, as noted above, tend toward an ex- 

 treme of grayish coloration, while the faded adults have some- 

 thing of the appearance of the Desert Wren. Also the pres- 

 ence in the series of an undoubted example of eremophihis 

 from the Piute Mountains in September tended to obscure the 

 facts, but this bird in all probability was a migrant from the 

 desert regions to the eastward. 



Fresh plumaged Thryomanes from the Sierra Nevada of 

 Kern and southern Tulare counties are desirable, and it may 

 be that such will exhibit characteristics intermediate between 

 typical charienturus and eremophihis. 



