THE SYSTEMATIC STATUS OF SOME NORTHWESTERN 

 SONG SPARROWS 



(WITH MAP) 

 By HARRY S. SWARTH 

 (Contribution from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California.) 



THE present paper is the result of an attempt to outline the ranges in 

 British Columbia of the races of Melospiza melodia that inhabit the 

 province, this for a distributional list of the birds of British Columbia 

 now in course of preparation by Major Allan Brooks and myself. 



The greater part of the material upon which the study is based is 

 contained in the Museumi of Vertebrate Zoology, but the following specimens 

 werel borrowed from other institutions : from the Victoria Memorial Mus- 

 eum, Ottawa, an extensive series of song sparrows representing many locali- 

 ties in British Columbia; from the United States National Museum, a series 

 of birds representing Melospiza melodia inexspectata, including the type of 

 that subspecies; from the United States Biological Survey, a series of birds 

 from the Queen Charlotte Islands; from the Museum of Comparative Zool- 

 ogy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the type specimen of Melospiza fasciata 

 mcrrilli Brewster. For the use of all this material, indispensable to such a 

 study as this, my thanks are extended to each of the institutions concerned 

 and to the individual curators through whom the loans were made. 



I am also under a debt of gratitude to Major Allan Brooks for criti- 

 cism and aid of various sorts. His assistance was sufficient to justify the 

 appearance of his name as co-author of this paper had he not wished other- 

 wise. 



Although it is the song sparrow of British Columbia that is of first 

 concern here, the status of the bird «f southeastern Alaska (the Alexander 

 Archipelago and the adjacent miainland) is so much a part of the same pro- 

 blem that that region is necessarily included. For convenience the term 

 'nifina group' will be used to designate the birds here treated, the reddish 

 brown song sparrows of the coast of northwest America from central Oregon 

 north to Glacier Bay, and, in British Columbia, west from the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. To the birds of that general area the subspecific names rufina, gut- 

 tata, morphna, merrilli, montana, inexspectata, and phaea, have been various- 

 ly a pplied. 



My own first impression was that the song sparrows of the entire region 

 might well all be listed under one name. I had several times studied series of 

 specimlens from southeastern Alaska and from different parts of British 

 Columbia without being able to correlate definite subspecific characters with 

 particular regions, and at first it did not seem to me that such correlations 

 could be established. Inasmuch, however, as certain extremes of variation 

 are represented by birds from localities as near together as the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands and Vancouver Island, and as these extremes are different enough to 

 be recognizable in the living bird, it is apparent that at least two subspecies of 

 Melospiza melodia will have to be conceded. It then remains to bring the rest 



