Vol. XVII 
1899 J 
Chapman, The Seaside Sparrows. 
7 
Springs, Florida, — the type locality of peninsula , — and Texas. 
From the last named State I have only three specimens repre- 
senting the dark, west Gulf coast form, but the characters they 
present are shown, by comparison with Mr. Mcllhenny’s series 
of breeding birds from and near Avery’s Island, La., to be 
typical. From a careful study of this material it appears that 
m fresh and unworn plumage the three forms are to be distin- 
guished from one another chiefly by the characters set forth in 
the appended tabular synopsis. Here it may be briefly said that 
mantimus is greenish olive margined with bluish gray above, 
with the breast and flanks streaked with bluish gray and mar- 
gined with buff. In peninsula the upper parts are dull black 
margined with greenish olive, the breast and flanks being streaked 
with dusky black margined with buff or bluish gray, while the 
dark west Gulf coast form has the upper parts deep black bor- 
dered by mummy brown and margined with bluish gray, the 
breast and flanks being distinctly streaked with black and heavily 
margined with pale ochraceous. 
Bearing these differences in mind we may approach the puzzling 
series of non-breeding birds from South Carolina and Georgia. 
It contains thirty-one adults and two immature (first plumage) 
specimens. Fifteen of the adults are perfectly typical, in color, of 
Long Island mantimus. Only one has the wing under 2.40 in., 
their average measurements being: wing, 2.46; tail, 2.18; bill 
fiom nostril, 45 in. they thus cmsely approach Long Island 
birds in size (see table of measurements beyond), evidence that 
they were winter residents from the north. 
Of the remaining sixteen adults ten are intermediate between 
mantimus and peninsula, most of them approaching the latter 
much more closely than the former. Their average measure- 
ments are: wing, 2.40; tail, 2.15; bill from nostril, 45. Nine 
of these birds are in Mr. Brewster’s collection, seven of them 
being labeled by him “ peninsula 
I believe these birds to be resident, racial representatives of 
mantimus, marking a stage in the geographical variation in this 
species, which, on the west coast of Florida, appears as peninsula. 
A specimen, evidently breeding, collected by Dr. Coues at Fort 
Macon, N. C., April 15, 1869 (U. S. N. M. No. 55523) is appre- 
