the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck, from a specimen collected in Japan. Temminck's description is contained in his Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux which was issued in 102 livraisons or parts between 1820 and 1839. It was at one time believed that the livraison containing the description of the russet sparrow was issued in 1835 but it has now been established that it appeared sometime in 1836 but as the precise date is not known under the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature it is deemed to have been published on 31 December 1836. Most taxonomists give priority to Gould's publication and use the binomial name Passer cinnamomeus for the russet sparrow. The russet sparrow has usually been placed in the genus Passer, and within this genus it is seen as a part of the "Palearctic black-bibbed sparrow" group, which includes the Eurasian tree sparrow as well as the house sparrow. It has generally been seen as a close relation of the house sparrow, and Richard Meinertzhagen even considered it to be the same species as the Somali sparrow, one of the house sparrow's closest relatives. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA indicate that the russet sparrow is an early offshoot or basal species among the Palearctic black-bibbed sparrows. While mitochrondrial DNA suggests speciation in Passer occurred during the Miocene and Pliocene, British ornithologist J. Denis Summers-Smith estimated that the russet sparrow separated from the other Palearctic black-bibbed sparrows about 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. During this time, sparrows would have been isolated in ice-free refugia, such as the lower Yangtze valley, which Summers-Smith considered the most likely centre of evolution for the russet sparrow. Thirteen subspecies have been described, but only three are widely recognised, these differing largely in the colour of their underparts. The subspecies Passer cinnamomea rutilans breeds in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and southeastern and central China. The subspecies intensior, described in 1922 by Walter Rothschild from Yunnan, breeds in southwest China and parts of India, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. In a large part of Sichuan intensior intergrades with P. c. rutilans, and a number of subspecies names have been proposed for the intergrades. The nominate subspecies cinnamomeus, described by Gould from the northwestern Himalayas, breeds from northern Arunachal Pradesh to Nuristan in Afghanistan. Description The russet sparrow is a small chunky bird, with plumage warm rufous in overall colour.