162 TJniversity of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 21 



be used for the breeding bird of the Sierra Nevada. Series of summer 

 specimens from various parts of those mountains are available for 

 comparison, and prove to be of a different type of bird (see page 173). 

 It is not possible at present to indicate the breeding range of megar- 

 hynchus, but the relativel}^ thorough working-out of the summer homes 

 of stephensi, niariposae, monoensis, fulva, and irevicauda, made pos- 

 sible by the series of specimens here assembled, narrows down the 

 territory in which this breeding area may be expected to be found. 

 Megarhynchus as here restricted, is, it may be remarked, perfectly 

 distinct from any of the above mentioned subspecies, and our ignor- 

 ance of its summer habitat is not to be explained by a mistaking of 

 seasonal or other variation of individual birds for the subspecific 

 variation of geographic races. Although there are only winter speci- 

 mens of megarhynchus at hand, there is sufficient material representa- 

 tive of the other closely related subspecies to demonstrate the reality 

 of the indicated differences, regardless of season. 



Megarhynchus is most nearly like hrevicauda, in fact the material 

 at hand indicates perfect intergradation between the two. Both are 

 brownish colored birds, compared with mariposae, monoensis, and 

 stephensi, and both have the same shaped bill, in different sizes. Series 

 of breeding birds at hand show that the subspecies of the Sierras are 

 decidedly grayish. Stephensi, mariposae, and monoensis, extending 

 from the San Jacinto Mountains to Mount Shasta, are all of this pale 

 type, and all have similarly shaped, rather slenderly-pointed, bills. 

 Obviously there is no room here for the insertion of a brownish- 

 colored, stubby-billed subspecies; also there are enough breeding 

 stations represented along these mountain chains to show that there 

 are no fox sparrows there of the megarhynchus type. 



On the other hand, the available material shows the existence of 

 a chain of brownish-colored subspecies of the Schistacea group, extend- 

 ing from schistacea of northern Nevada, through fulva of southern 

 Oregon, and the Warner Mountains, California, and ending with 

 hrevicauda of the Yolla Bolly Mountains. In its salient characters 

 megarhynchus apparently fits in between fidva and hrevicauda; it is 

 intermediate between the two, though appreciably nearer the latter. 

 According to this reasoning the breeding grounds of megarhynchus 

 would lie in the coastal mountains of extreme northwestern California, 

 and, probably, southwestern Oregon. This section is not represented 

 by a single specimen in the material at hand, and apparenth' there 

 has been little or no bird collectino: done there. As far as I know 



