Species of Passerine Birds. 57 
surrounds the small town o£ Mistretta, in the Province of 
Messina, has an elevation varying from 900 to 1300 metres 
above sea-level, and its woods are chiefly of cork-, oak-, 
chestnut-, and olive-trees. I was somewhat surprised to 
find A. sicula at an elevation o£ below 1000 metres in the 
month of June; but the slopes of the hills near Mistretta 
have a northern aspect, and the temperature is probably 
never very high there. On the approach of autumn A. sicula 
returns to its winter-quarters, and during the first week of 
October I obtained specimens of it again from the Bosco di 
Fienzza, whereas my collector entirely failed to meet with 
the species during that month in the Madonian mountains 
(the Monies Marones of Pliny) or the Nebrodian range (the 
Monies Nebrodes of Strabo). 
To sum up, Acredula sicula appears to be an insular form, 
closely allied to A. caucasica Lorenz, occurring, so far as is 
at present known, only in the island of Sicily, and inhabiting 
the wooded inland districts of that island, where it breeds 
in the higher mountain forests. 
So far as I am aware, no other form of Acredula occurs 
in Sicily, although Doderlein has stated that A. irbii was to 
be found there as a winter migrant ; indeed he mentions 
having sent a Sicilian specimen of that species to the British 
Museum (^Avifauna del Mod. e della Sic' pp. 138 & 341). 
It is quite possible that A. irbii may also occur in the island 
but I have no knowledge of its doing so, and the Sicilian 
collection of the Palermo University Museum only possesses 
a solitary example of Acredula, the label attached to which 
bears the following inscription : "Parus caudatus, Linn., 
Marzo 1888 : Bosco della Fienzza.'^ 
After some hesitation, I have decided not to suppress the 
names of the several districts in Sicily where I have found 
A. sicula, as I think that it would hardly repay any trading 
naturalist to attempt to lay in a ''stock'' of specimens 
of the species, and the difficulties which beset the ordinary 
traveller in the interior of the island are of themselves 
sufficient to deter any but the keenest collector from 
penetrating those mountainous regions ! 
