The eggs from one nest of the _Passerella schistacea_ measure .90 by .70 of an inch, have a ground of a light mountain-green, and are profusely spotted with blotches of a rufous-brown, generally diffused over the entire egg. Another nest of this species, obtained in Parley’s Park, in the Wahsatch Mountains, by Mr. Ridgway, June 23, 1869, was built in a clump of willows, about two feet from the ground. The nest is two inches in height, two and a half in diameter, cavity one and a half deep, with a diameter of two. It is composed externally of coarse decayed water-grass, is lined with fine hair and finer material like the outside. The eggs, four in number, are .80 by .67 of an inch, of a very rounded oval shape, the ground-color of a pale green, blotched and marked chiefly at the larger end with brown spots of a wine-colored hue. Passerella townsendi, var. megarhynchus, BAIRD. THICK-BILLED SPARROW. _Passerella schistacea_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, p. 490 (in part; Ft. Tejon specimens). _Passerella megarhynchus_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, p. 925 (Appendix).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 222. _Passerella schistacea_, var. _megarhynchus_, RIDGWAY, Rept. Geol. Expl. 40th Par. [Line drawing: 13757 ♂] SP. CHAR. Similar to var. _schistacea_ in colors, size, and general proportions; but bill enormously thick, its depth being very much greater than the distance from nostril to tip, instead of much less; color of lower mandible rosy milk-white, instead of maize-yellow. Bill, .35 from nostril, .47 deep; wing, 3.30; tail, 3.50; tarsus, .83; middle toe without claw, .63; hind claw, .50. HAB. Sierra Nevada, from Fort Tejon north to 40° latitude (Carson City, Nevada, breeding, RIDGWAY). This very remarkable variety of _P. townsendi_ is quite local in its distribution, having been observed only in the Sierra Nevada region, as above indicated. The first specimens were brought from Fort Tejon by Mr. J. Xantus, but at what season they were found there is not indicated on the labels. Recently, specimens were procured by Mr. Ridgway at Carson City, Nev., in April, they having arrived there about the 20th of April, frequenting the ravines of the Sierra near the snow. At the same place the var. _schistacea_ was found earlier in the spring, but among the willows along the streams in the valleys, and not met with in the mountains; and all the individuals had passed northward before those of _megarhynchus_ arrived. In this restricted distribution the present bird is a companion of the _Melospiza melodia_, var. _heermanni_, and the characteristics of form are the same in both as compared with their Middle Province and Northern representatives; while they both differ from the latter (_townsendi_ of _Passerella_, and _rufina_ of _Melospiza_) in purer, lighter, and less brown colors.