3 24 RiioADS on the Hudsonian Chickadee a,id its Allies. [^'J^ 



worthless for comparisons of the kind under consideration, being 

 not only two or three shades lighter than spring and winter 

 specimens from the same regions but having actually lost two to 

 four millimeters from tips of wings and tail by abrasion. So far 

 as descriptions go we have no proof that Forster's bird is any 

 redder, browner, or darker than average hudsonicus from Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, the type region of littoralis ; and 

 the abraded condition of Bryant's specimens can fully account 

 for the difference in recorded measurements. 



A more direct way out of this difficulty would seem to be the 

 comparison of recent skins of each form from their respective 

 habitats. Strictly speaking this has been impossible, for my 

 series includes no skins from nearer the type locality of hud- 

 sonicus than Moose Factory, four hundred miles southwest of it 

 on the shore of James' Bay. This specimen in size and color 

 is comparable to larger skins from Canada East, and the New 

 England States. As will be hereafter pointed out, the Severn 

 River lies near, but within the northern boundary of the Hudson- 

 ian Fauna of the Cold Temperate Sub-region^ within the east- 

 ern limits of which the climatic conditions are presumably quite 

 uniform. West of this a race of hudsonicus prevails, distinctly 

 separable from Forster's type on account of its larger size. In 

 northern Labrador a humid-arctic environment has produced a 

 race, which I have here described as new, under the name 

 ungava (see below, p. 328), differing in size from largest hudso- 

 nicus from the southeast and showing marked color characters to 

 distinguish it. So far as we can conjecture from Forster's 

 description, his types approach the Labrador form in the so-called 

 "reddish brown" of the crown, but even this is straining a point 

 in favor of their identity with ungava as against their closer 

 affinities with Bryant's littoralis. 



In the absence of specimens from the west shore of Hudson's 

 Bay the weight of evidence is in favor of assuming that the P. 

 hudsonicus of Forster represents the northern extreme of what 

 I have defined as the Hudson-Canadian type and not the southern 

 extreme of the Barren Ground race. 



Littoralis has not been recognized by the A. O. U., and is 

 ignored by Mr. Ridgway in his 'Manual.' Dr. Coues makes 



1 The faunal nomenclature adopted is that of Dr. Allen in 'The Auk,' of April, 1893. 



