1 the Hudsonian Chickadee and its AHies 



In 1863, Dr. Henry Bryant secured a family of Chickadees at 

 Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and gave a description of them in the 

 ninth volume of the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History under the name Parus hudsonicus, var. littoralis." 

 Dr. Bryant comments on certain differences of size and color 

 between his Yarmouth birds and those from Hudson's Bay, as 

 follows: "The specimens of Parus hudsonicus from Yarmouth 

 and those from the Hudson's Bay Territory present as great, if 

 not greater, differences in size than exist between P. carolin- 

 ensis and P. atricapillus, and in color between P. septentrion- 

 alis and P. atricapillus." As Dr. Bryant goes into no definite 

 comparisons of tiie two forms, we must conclude that he con- 

 sidered the Yarmouth birds smaller and darker than those from 

 Fort Severn. 



This brings us face to face with the important question as to 

 what are the exact characters of typical hudsonicus. We have 

 Forster's original Latin description, which is quite detailed. 

 From it"we can adduce only one or two decisive facts. One of these 

 is the measurements ; but even these are open to some doubt, 

 owing to the different methods of measurement adopted by 

 naturalists. We are, however, convinced that Bryant's measure- 

 ments were taken from smaller birds than those of Forster. But 

 these differences are no greater than those I have detected 

 between individuals of a series of over twenty from Campbellton, 

 New Brunswick, all secured in April and May of the same year. 

 When we turn to color definitions to solve the difficulty it only 

 increases our bewilderment. The best we can make out of Fors- 

 ter's description is that the top of the head in hudsonicus is 

 "reddish brown" ; in another place it is "ferruginous brown" ; the 

 back is said to be "ashy green, brownish on longest feathers" and 

 the "ends of the feathers somewhat olivaceous brownish green." 

 Comparing this with littoralis whose crown and hind neck are 

 said to be "faded, yellowish ash, with back, scapulars and 

 rump dirty ash" there is only one thing certain, — ■ & belief in Dr. 

 Bryant's mind that littoralis yv&s lighter colored than hudsonicus. 

 But Bryant's description was taken from a pair of birds which 

 had raised a brood and were in the worn and faded plumage of 

 midsummer. I happen to have three such birds from Steiwacke, 

 Nova Scotia, which well answer Bryant's description but are 



