Letters, Announcements, i^c. 205 



nett, near Edinburgh, sixty miles north of Fort Brown, and 

 afterwards by Dr. Merrill at Fort Brown. 



Myiarchus erythrocercus, Scl. & Salv. This species, also 

 new to our fauna, has been taken by Dr. Merrill, who has 

 also been so fortunate as to secure two sets of its eggs, one 

 with five, the other with three examples. These, as might 

 be supposed, are very similar in all their peculiarities to those 

 of M. crinitus, M. mexicanus, and M. cooperi, most nearly 

 approaching the latter in the size and number of its purplish 

 brown markings. A full account of these will be given in 

 Dr. MerrilFs forthcoming ' List of the Birds of the Lower 

 Rio Grande,' to be published by the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution. He already has a list of 250 species that he has 

 himself taken. 



Dr. Merrill has also secured the birds, with their nest and 

 eggs, of what Mr. Ridgway calls Peuc(sa (sstivnlis, variety 

 arizonee. I am not much impressed, generally, with this 

 " variety " style ; and in the present case I have no faith in 

 it whatever. The set of eggs, taken with their parents, in 

 this case are as widely difierent fi'om well identified eggs of 

 the genuine P. aestivalis as nearly spherical, decidedly blue 

 eggs can be from pointedly oval crystalline white eggs. I 

 therefore believe P. arizona to be a good species, and cer- 

 tainly not a variety of P. aestivalis. I believe it is not new to 

 our fauna, though I am not sure. It has been taken in 

 Sonora, Mexico, and attributed to Southern Arizona. 



We had an interesting visitation during a violent snow- 

 storm, which prevailed hereabouts several weeks ago, and 

 which lasted forty-eight hours, accompanied by high winds. 

 A trap set for Plectrophanes nivalis was found to contain a 

 fine adult example of Pyranga ludoviciana, Bon. It was a 

 wild bird ; and its most eastern limit is the great Missouri 

 plains, two thousand miles distant. Besides, on the 20th of 

 January it is supposed that all these birds are in Mexico or 

 Central America. How happened such a bird to reach us 

 in midwinter ? Can it be that the great storm, that had been 

 some ten days in approaching us, caught this bird somewhere 

 on the Mexican-Gulf coast in its vortex, and compelled its 

 reluctant steps to our inhospitable shores ? But I forbear, lest 



