1920] Swarth: Revision of Avian Genus Passerella 169 



There is one skin at hand from the Ojai Valley, Ventura County, 

 April 18. From Santa Catalina Island a specimen collected April 19 

 affords the latest date for southern California. Specimens collected 

 on the same island in mid-December attest the wintering of the bird 

 there. 



Passerella iliaca canescens Swartli 



White Mountains Fox Sparrow 



Original deseriptioii. — Passerella iliaca canescens Swarth, 1918, p. 163. 



Type specimen. — No. 28439, Calif. Mus. Vert, Zool. ; immature male 

 (in nearly complete first winter plumage) ; Wyman Creek at 8250 feet 

 altitude, east slope of White Mountains, Inyo County, California; 

 August 15, 1917 ; collected by A. C. Shelton ; original number 8549. 



Range. — In summer apparently confined to the White Mountains, 

 in Inyo and Mono counties, California. Migration route and winter 

 habitat unknown, save as the species is represented by a few speci- 

 mens from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties and the Colorado 

 River, California. 



Specimens exa/mined. — 23 (see list, p. 205). 



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

 Distinguished from all other subspecies within this group, save 

 schistacea, by its diminutive bill (see fig. D). From schistacea, 

 canescens may be differentiated by its decidedly more grayish color- 

 ation. This is strikingly apparent when freshly molted birds of the 

 two subspecies are compared, and it is also evident in the juvenal 

 plumage. In worn midsummer birds these color differences naturally 

 are obscured. 



Remarks. — The type series of canescens consists of twelve speci- 

 mens from the Boreal Zone on the White Mountains, in Inyo and 

 Mono counties, California. The series includes three adults in rather 

 worn summer plumage, two adults undergoing the annual molt, but 

 mostly in the new winter plumage, and six in juvenal plumage, some 

 of them showing a few feathers of the first winter plumage. There 

 are a few winter birds at hand from southern California that appear 

 to belong to this subspecies, all taken at points some distance from 

 the coast. One from Mount Wilson, November 4, 1894 (no. 34, Swarth 

 coll.), appears to be typical canescens, extremely small-billed, of 

 decidedly slaty coloration, and the breast spotting rather sparse and 

 with no trace of the reddish brown peculiar to schistacea. Others 

 from Blythe, Riverside County (on the Colorado River), San Antonio 

 Canon, San Bernardino County, San Dimas and Palmer's caiions, 

 Los Angeles County, and Santa Barbara, though not so extreme in 

 character, are apparently also to be referred to canescens. There is 

 a notable difference between these birds and the brownish colored 

 schistacea found migrating in the Sierra Nevada. 



