1^20] Swarth: Revision of Avian Genus Passer ella 161 



the two subspecies. The Santa Barbara specimen is close to typical 

 fulva. Two specimens in the W. M. Pierce collection (nos. 1772, 

 1796), from Cucamonga and San Dimas canons, southern California, 

 I have also considered as fulva, but they are far from typical of the 

 form. If these several points in San Bernardino and Los Angeles 

 counties represent northern and western limits of the winter habitat 

 of fulva, as seems possible, it would not be surprising to find at these 

 outposts non-typical birds, visitors from the borderland of the summer 

 home of the race. 



Passerella iliaca megarhynchus Baird 

 Thick-billed Fox Sparrow 



Original description. — P[assereUa]. megarhynchus Baird, 1858, p. 925. [Note 

 that I use this name, megarhynchiis, as it is written by the original describer, 

 Baird. He, too, used it in this form in conjunction with the generic term Passe- 

 reUa.] 



Type specimen. — No. 12402, U. S. Nat. Mus. ; female; Fort Tejon, 

 Kern County, California; collected by J. Xantus de Vesey; original 

 number 1397 ; date of capture not on label. 



Range. — Common winter visitant to the Pacific slope of southern 

 California. Summer home unknown. 



Specimens ex^amiined. — 104 (see list, pp. 202-204). 



Distinguishing characters. — Of the Schistacea group (see p. 89). 

 From all other subspecies of this group except hrevicauda, ynegar- 

 hynchus may be distinguished by its heavy, stubby bill and relatively 

 brownish coloration. In both these features it approaches hrevicauda, 

 but it has a less heavy bill, and it is not as brown colored as in the 

 extreme of that form. In bill structure megarhynchus is about inter- 

 mediate between the type of hrevicauda on the one hand and fulva, 

 of southern Oregon, on the other (see fig. Y). 



Remarks. — In assorting the confused series of "thick-billed spar- 

 rows" contained in the several collections available from southern 

 California, there proved to be in each lot a rather large percentage 

 of birds, winter visitants only, with the prominent characteristics of 

 broad, stubby bill, and relatively brownish coloration. Through the 

 courtesy of the authorities of the United States National Museum I 

 have been permitted to examine the type specimen of Passerella 

 megarhynchus Baird, and it proves to be a bird of this character. 

 The name megarhynchus is thus shown to be properly applied (as 

 it has been in the past) to the most common form of ''thick-billed spar- 

 row" found in winter in southern California, but it can no longer 



