The Santa Cruz Song Sparrow, with notes on the Salt Marsh Song Sparrow
BY JOSEPH GRINNELL.
Melospiza melodia santaecruis new subspecies.
Subsp. Char. -Relationship apparently nearest to Melospiza melodia cooperi, from which it differs in smaller size, in much narrower and weaker bill, and in the greater extent and intensity of the brown markings.
Type-- 3 ad., No. 4292, Coil. J. G.; San Francisquito Creek, near Palo Alto, California; June 2, 1900; collected by J. Grinnell.
Coloration--Feathers on top of the head with narrow sooty streaks, broadly edged with chestnut; narrow median crown-stripe drab gray; feathers of mantle, broadly streaked with sooty and latterally margined with hazel and clay color. Wing-coverts, secondaries and tail feathers broadly edged with bright hazel. Postocular and rictal stripes, chiefly hazel. Superciliary stripe, drab gray. Breast and sides narrowly and sparsely streaked with sooty, the streaks running forward into well-defined maxillary stripes; most of these blackish markings are bordered narrowly with bright hazel. Flanks and crissum clay color, streaked with sooty sepia. Rest of under parts pure white. Range--Along the fresh-water streams heading in the Santa Cruz Mountain Region, from San Francisco south to Monterey Bay. Measurements--The following are the average measurements in inches of all the adult skins available of the four southern coast races of Melospiza melodia.
Trying the male female symbols
- ♂ ♀
Subspecies. I,ocality Skins. Wing. Tail. Culmen, Depth Skins. Wing. Tail. Culmen. Depth of Bill of Bill cooperi { Pasadena and x5 2.47 2.8x .47 .28 6 2.33 2.64 .45 .27 vicinity 3 3 sanlcecrucis { Fresh-water 2.41 2.66 .45 .25 II 2.31 2.58 .45 .25 streams P.A. c c ? ? (Salt marshes 20 2.28 2.46 .44 .24 15 2.18 2.36 .43 .23 pusilhda - S.F.Bay near 3 ? ? [ Palo Alto. Salt marshes 3 2.28 2.50 -43 .23 2 2.15 2.37 -43 .23 samuelis St. Vincent, 3 3 9 Marin Co. REMARKs--This is another case serving to give the fauna of the Santa Cruz Mountain Region an insular complexion. The Song Sparrows from that vicinity have been variously referred to samuelis and heermanni, but upon comparison with either of these the distinctions are readily perceived. In the neighborhood of Palo Alto the habitats of santacrucis and pusillula are immediately adjoining. San Francisquito Creek at its mouth forms a slightly elevated delta sloping away gently into the surrounding salt marsh. Santa Cruz Song Sparrows are abundant and constant residents from the source of this stream in the Sierra Mnrena, to the final limit of the willows at its mouth. At this latter point we have the interest- ing problem of two "subspecies" breedin literally within a stone's-throw of each other. I have in mind a particular area near the foot of the Embarcadero Road, where a salt slough, its banks matted with Salicornia, winds along a willow thicket. Here on May 1i, and on several previous occasions throughout the year, I shot typical specimens of both ibztsi/ltla and sazlacricis xx ithin a few yards of each other, but [ have never found either one in the habitat of the other. The full-fledged young of both forms, which are as easily distinguishable as the adults, were secured in numbers, but those of sanlacrucis always in the willows of the creek and the weed-patches adjoining, while those of pusillula invariably came from the Salicornia beds. Briefly, [ have no evidence whatever that pusillula and' sanlacrucis interbreed. The latter, however, is obviously in geographical continuity with cooperi to the south, and probably with the still larger heermanni of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Basin. But what has been the derivation of the Salt Marsh Song Sparrow? I have no material whatever to show that either of the small marsh forms, samuelis and pusillula, intergrades with
