CISTOTHOEUS. 105 



This common North-American Marsh-Wren is widely distributed in the United 

 States, occurring as a summer visitor in New England, and even straggling to Green- 

 land ; thence it appears to spread over the whole country to the Colorado basin, and 

 passes southwards to Southern Mexico. It breeds throughout this wide area, and 

 is probably only migratory in the northern parts of its summer range, as it has been 

 observed in winter as far north as the Columbia river on the west and in the Carolinas 

 on the east coast ^. In Mexico we know but little of it ; but in all probability it is 

 resident there, Guatemala has been included in the range of C. palustris, apparently 

 from an incidental statement in Prof. Baird's ' Eeview of American Birds ' ^, where 

 that author speaks of Sclater and Salvin's first article on Guatemala birds as including 

 the mention of a form of C. palustris which was unknown to him. This reference is 

 to C. elegans ; yet all recent works on North-American birds include Guatemala, some- 

 times with doubt, sometimes without, as within the range of C. palustris. 



Prof. Baird, in the work just quoted ^ separates the western from the eastern bird, 

 distinguishing the former by the name of var. paludicola. But as the species, as 

 Dr. Coues says ^, is subject to a good deal of difference in details of coloration which 

 cannot be satisfactorily correlated with any special sex, age, or season, the difference of 

 race does not seem to be capable of definition with certainty. Dr. Coues keeps both 

 together under the single name Cistothorws palustris, which, so far as we can see, is the 

 right way of treating the species. A Mexican specimen in our possession has the 

 scapulars and lower back of a tawny rather than a light brown colour ; but this differ- 

 ence may well come within the limits of individual variation. 



C. palustris was first brought into general notice by Wilson, who described it as 

 observed by him in Pennsylvania, and figured it in his great work ^ ; but it was noticed 

 by Bartram several years before, and mentioned in his ' Travels through Carolina &c.,' 

 under the name of Motacilla palustris ^. 



The habits of the species, as well as its mode of nidification, are fully described by 

 Brewer ^ and Dr. Coues ^. 



2. Cistothorus polyglottus. (Tab. VII. fig. 3.) 



Todo voz, Azara, Apunt. ii. p. 29. no. 151', unde 



Thryothorus polyglottus, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. N. xxxiv. p. 59'. 



astothorus polyglottus, Pelz. Orn. Bras. p. 48'; Scl. & Salv. P.Z. S. 1879, p. 593*. 



Cistothorus elegans, Scl. & Salv. Ibis, 1859, p. 8', 1860, p. 30°; Baird, Rev. Am. B. i. p. 146'; 



Salv. P. Z. S. 1870, p. 182". 

 Cistothorus stellaris, Sel. Cat. Am. B. p. 22'; Sumiehrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. N. H. i. p. 545 " (nee 



Naum.) . 

 Cistothorus aquatorialis, Lawr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. x. p. 3 " ? 

 Cistothorus graminicola, Taez. P. Z. S. 1874, p. 130 '' ? 



Supra fulvescenti-brunneus ; alls et cauda (dorso imo quoque obsolete) nigro transversim f aaoiatis ; pUei et inter- 



BioL. CBNT.-AMBR., Zool., Aves, Vol. 1, August 1880. 14 



