ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB, 
81 
being successively taken, and the remaining seven hatched. I have 
not seen any evidence of a second brood being raised here after the 
first, very few birds of any kind doing this, on account of the 
scarcity of insect-food after the dry season is advanced, or in July. 
The first brood left the nest June 5; the second on the 16th, 
which also consisted of six. 
ON GEOGKAPHICAL VAKIATION IN DENDRCECA PALMARUM. 
BY ROBERT RIDGWAY. 
A VERY remarkable variation in colors, accompanied by less 
striking difference of size, from east to west, in this species, was 
first brought to my notice by a casual examination of the specimens 
contained in the National Museum, specimens from the Atlantic 
States appearing at first sight to be very much brighter colored than 
those from the Mississippi Valley, with somewhat different markings, 
and also larger in size. Examples from the West Indies, where, in 
part, the species passes the winter, are, so far as seen, entirely re- 
ferable to the western form, as are also those from Western »and 
Southern Florida. The circumstance that West-Indian specimens 
are identical with those from the Mississippi Valley is conspicuously 
in contrast with the case of D. dominica, in which the relationship 
is reversed, West-Indian specimens being identical with those from 
the Atlantic States, while examples from the interior States agree 
with those taken in Mexico and Honduras. The D. dominica, how- 
ever, is resident in the southern portions of its range, while D. 
palmarum is one of those species which pass mainly north of the 
United States to breed.* Another fact in connection with the present 
bird is the notable exception which it constitutes in the matter of 
climatic variation to certain laws under this head, it being usual for 
specimens from the Mississippi Valley to be, if any different, brighter 
than those from corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic Coast. 
The variation would therefore appear to be entirely with longitude, 
so far as geographical considerations are concerned, and not to be 
explained by any known climatfc laws. 
This is written with the most positive assurance that such a wide 
* D. palmarum has not been recorded from any part of Mexico or Central 
America. 
