OLD CROW 215 



Family PARIDAE: Titmice, Verdins, Bushtits 

 Parus cinctus lathami Stephens 



We did not see any gray-headed chickadees. Olaus Murie (1928) 

 remarked that after nesting season they were rather conspicuous 

 along Old Crow River but that along Porcupine River he found only 

 boreal chickadees, an interesting distinction of range which he 

 thought to result from the preference of P. cinctus for the narrow 

 fringes of forest near the limit of trees. 



Parus hudsonicus hudsonicus Forster 



We occasionally saw boreal chickadees, usually in pairs, in a va- 

 riety of situations among thick willows and alders and in mixed 

 timber, but since they were rather quiet and secretive the popula- 

 tion may have been larger. The largest testes found were in 

 a specimen collected on May 21, but we have no other indication of 

 the time of laymg. Olaus Murie (1928) found these chickadees 

 common along the Porcupine River but it is interesting that along 

 Old Crow he found none, although gray-headed chickadees {P. 

 cinctiis) were common. 



Our series of chickadees is uniformly a little paler brown on back 

 and crown than most examples of P. h. hudsonicus. Their tails are as 

 long as the longer examples among Alaskan birds. In these respects 

 they differ from the characters of P. h. farleyi, which Earl Godfrey 

 (1951) named as in the neighboring range of southern Mackenzie. 

 The specimens from Old Crow resemble two from the Savioyuk River, 

 at the northern limit of trees in central arctic Alaska. Our specimens 

 fit the vague characterization of P. h. evura by Coues (1884) and 

 Godfrey kindly informed us that he regarded three chickadees sent 

 to him from the John River, Alaska, as that race. 



When Alaskan specimens were compared for degree of brownness 

 of back the palest and the darkest groups contained examples mingled 

 from eastern and western locaKties. Since we could not see that the 

 brown was distributed among Alaskan specimens according to a geo- 

 graphic pattern it seemed to serve no purpose to distinguish races on 

 this basis among AJaskan boreal chickadees. There is no advantage 

 apparent in naming the boreal chickadees of Old Crow differently 

 from the nominate race. 



The Indians call this bird Tchichika. 



469496—60 15 



