UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 
IN 
ZOOLOGY 
Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 265-269 April 9, 1909 
THREE NEW SONG SPARROWS FROM 
CALIFORNIA 
BY 
JOSEPH GRINNELL. 
(Contribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California.) 
During the past year the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology has 
acquired through the efforts of Annie M. Alexander and Louise 
Kelloge a large amount of material representative of the avian 
genus Melospiza. My attention has long been attracted towards 
this wonderfully “‘plastic’’ group of birds, and the availability 
of so much new material from the Pacific Coast would seem to 
- warrant a monographie revision of the western song sparrows. 
This work I have now undertaken, to be coneluded and pub- 
lished at some future time when results shall seem to have reached 
a sufficiently important stage. Meanwhile it seems desirable to 
characterize briefly the following three new forms, so that they 
may become known to other ornithologists and their status tested 
from other points of view. No less than seventeen distinct races, 
forms, small species or subspecies, as phylogenetic groups of such 
rank are variously called, are now represented in the Museum’s 
collection of song sparrows from California alone. 
Melospiza melodia maxillaris, new subspecies. 
Suisun Song Sparrow. 
Type.—Male adult (age determined by examination of skull) ; 
no. 5476, Univ. Calif. Mus. Vert. Zool.; tule marsh west of Sui- 
sun, Solano County, California; January 1, 1909; collected by 
L. Kellogg. 
