The Chestnut-backed Chickadees 
No. 124a Marin Chickadee 
A. O. U. No. 741a. Penthestes rufescens neglectus (Ridgway). 
Synonym.— California Chickadee. 
Description. —Like P. r. rufescens, but chestnut duller and paler, that of sides 
and flanks much reduced in area, and admixed with dull mouse-gray. 
Range of P. r. neglectus (Wholly included in California).—“Common resident 
of humid Transition in Marin County, from Nicasio west to Point Reyes” (Grinnell). 
Authorities.—Brewster (Parus rufescens), Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, vol. iii., 
1878, p. 20 (Nicasio; desc. young); Ridgway (Parus rufescens neglectus), Proc. U. S. 
Nat. Mus., vol. i., 1879, p. 486 (orig. desc.; type locality Nicasio, Marin Co.); J. Mail- 
Hard, Condor, vol. x., 1908, p. 181 (distr. of P. r. rufescens and P. r. neglectus). 
No. 124b Santa Cruz Chickadee 
A. O. U. No. 741b. Penthestes rufescens barlowi (Grinnell). 
Synonym.— Barlow's Chickadee. 
Description. —Like P. r. neglectus, but chestnut of sides and flanks entirely 
wanting, or, if present, only as rusty or pinkish tinge over light mouse-gray. 
Range of P. r. barlowi (Wholly included within California).—“Common 
resident of Transition in the coast district south of Golden Gate and San Francisco 
Bay, from Presidio to Little Sur River, Monterey County” (Grinnell). Ranges a 
little way into interior in autumn and occurs, thus, as far north as Berkeley. 
Authorities. — Nuttall ( Parus rufescens), Man. Orn. U. S. and Can., vol. i., 
1840, p. 268, part (Upper California); Grinnell, Condor, vol. ii., 1900, p. 127 (orig. 
desc.; Stevens Creek Canon, Santa Clara Co.); ibid., Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 11, 1915, 
p. 164 (dist.); Ray, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, p. 226 (desc. nests and eggs). 
THE PLEASANT traditions which have grown up about the name 
Chickadee in the East, applying as they do to Penthestes atricapilhts and 
its scarcely different kinsman, P. carolinensis, have operated to discour¬ 
age independent study of this roughly related but wholly distinct species, 
P. rufescens. The public curiosity being already measurably satisfied as 
to Chickadees, we have been allowed to suppose that the Chestnut-backed 
Chickadee was about the same sort of a bird, while careless writers have 
described P. rufescens in terms boldly borrowed from P. atricapillus. 
There is, however, a more creditable excuse for our continued ignorance. 
The associational range of the Chestnut-back is the heavy conifer forest 
of the West, notably, in California, the Redwood belt; and the bird’s 
days are largely passed in wooded depths beyond the reach of common 
observation. The birds pay less attention to the human presence than 
do the eastern Black-caps, because they have felt no such need of a wintry 
dole of suet or chopped nuts to tide them over hard weather; nor has 
our presence been forced upon them through destruction of their forest 
fastnesses. It is possibly true, also, that the somber forests of the humid 
belt have had a restraining effect upon the spirits of our coastal Chick¬ 
adee, so that he is neither quite so lively nor so noisy as his giddy eastern 
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