ON A BIRD NEW TO THE BERMUDAS, WITH NOTES UPON SEV- 

 ERAL SPECIES OF RARE OR ACCIDENTAL OCCURRENCE. 



Melospiza fasciata (Gmelin) Scott. Song Sparrow. 



Walter H. Merriam and myself found a dead Song Sparrow near 

 Hungary Bay, Bermuda, April 18, 1881. This was after a heavy gale 

 from the southwest, and the date would bring it about the close of the 

 period of northward migration for this species along our coast. Al- 

 though the weather was warm and the atmosphere laden with moisture 

 the bird was perfectly fresh and could not have been dead long. It 

 was doubtless lost at sea during the storm and carried exhausted to the 

 Bermudas, where it perished from the effects of the tempest. This 

 species has not heretofore been recorded from the Bermudas. 



Pyranga rw&ra (Linn.) Vieillot Scarlet Tanager. 



On the 18th of April, 1881, 1 found an adult male of this species, 

 washed ashore on the south side of Bermuda, in Paget Parish. 



Pelionetta perspicillata (Linn.) Kaup. Surf Duck. 



During the middle and latter part of April, 1881, 1 on several occa- 

 sions saw a male "Skunk-head Scoter," or "Surf Duck" swimming 

 about in a shallow brackish-water pond in Devonshire Parish. The 

 pond was bordered and encroached upon by a dense growth of the 

 curious semi-aquatic mangrove {RMzophora mangle)^ of which a single 

 tree often covers several acres, and constitutes a miniature forest by itself. 

 It was within this intricate and complex labyrinth of half immersed 

 roots and tangled branches that the duck was commonly found. Here 

 he would drift about lazily but with considerable circumspection, obtain- 

 ing an easy and varied sustenance from the multitudes of small " shell 

 fish" and other marine animals that gather in countless hosts about 

 the roots of this remarkable tree. Where could a duck find a more in- 

 viting or secure home than this secluded lagoon, hidden by a dense and 

 almost impenetrable jungle of mangrove, and surrounded by a morass 

 of treacherous bog ? 



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