Cistothorus -palustris dissaeptus . 



3^0 'QK^iG^, A Nevj Long-billed Marsh Wren. 



fresh-water bird from my earliest collecting days, I at once rec- 

 ognized a stranger in the little white-bellied, dark-backed form 

 that winters in the coastal marshes of South Carohna. Since then, 

 with the help of Mr. Wm. Brewster's large series and what other 

 specimens could be borrowed, I have worked out the distribution 

 of the two, and find the little white-bellied form to be pecuHar to 

 the salt marshes of the coast and the larger brownish-bellied bird 

 to be restricted, in the breeding season, to the fresh-water marshes 

 of the Atlantic watershed. 



Certhia pahcstris Wilson was unequivocally based on the small 

 white-bellied form, and the larger bird of the fresh marshes is the 

 one in need of a name. 



As with all Long-billed Marsh Wrens, there is some individual 

 variation in color in both the eastern races ; thus occasionally a 

 bird taken in the breeding season in the salt marshes of Connect- 

 icut, or southward, will not be so white below as usual, or another 

 will have the lower back rather redder than it ought ; now and 

 then, also, a bird from the fresh-water marshes of Massachusetts 

 or elsewhere will slightly approach in color to true C. palustris ; 

 but size is an infallible test, and these slightly off color examples 

 will always be found to agree in this respect with the more typical 

 specimens of their own race. Were it not for this individual vari- 

 ation in color, rare as it is, I should unhesitatingly pronounce the 

 two birds here treated distinct species, so sharply are their hab- 

 itats defined, and so great is the diiference in size between them. 



From either of the western races, Cistothorus pahcstris paludi- 

 cola Baird or C. palustris plesius Oberholser, the eastern forms can 

 be told by many slight, though pretty constant characters as 

 pointed out by Mr. Oberholser.^ 



South of the range of true C. palustris and living under much 

 the same conditions, the salt marsh of the coast, a very differ- 

 ent bird — C. griseus Brewster — occurs. I can find no sign of 

 intergradation between these two and most emphatically regard 

 the latter as a distinct species. This bird breeds and is resident 

 from the coast of South Carohna to Matanzas Inlet, Florida. At 



lAuk, Vol. XIV, April, 1897, pp. 186-196. 'Critical Remarks on Cisto- 

 thorus palustris (Wils.) and its Western Allies.' By Harry C. Oberholser. 



