154 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF KANSAS, AND A REVISED 



CATALOGUE. 



By Feancis H. Snow, of the University of Kansas. 

 Read before the Academy, at Topeka, January 2, 1903. 



WHEN the writer of this paper arrived at Lawrence, Kan., in the 

 last week of August, 1866, about ten days before the opening 

 of the State University, he took the earliest opportunity to call upon 

 the chancellor of the University. He took it for granted that some 

 preliminary arrangements would be necessary before the arrival of 

 the important day which should usher into existence so important an 

 institution as that with which he was to be connected as a member of 

 its first faculty. The chancellor, the Rev. R. W. Oliver, rector of the 

 Episcopal church of Lawrence, informed him that nothing could be 

 done until the opening day, and advised him to "get a gun and go 

 shooting." This advice was conscientiously followed, with the result 

 that the writer soon became deeply interested in the birds of Kansas, 

 and began to jorepare a catalogue. He had the entire field to himself, 

 there being no other person in the state for several years who was 

 known to him as having an interest in ornithology. He soon organ- 

 ized among his students an enthusiastic class in zoology, and instituted 

 an ornithological survey. It was a great delight to him to enumerate 

 the birds of Douglas county, and to explore a field never before in- 

 vestigated with reference to its avifauna. 



In April, 1872, he published the first edition of his Catalogue of the 

 Birds of Kansas, in the Kansas Educational Journal. The list of 

 birds in this catalogue included 239 species and varieties, of which 

 thirty-two species were inserted on the authority of Dr. T. M. Brewer, 

 of Boston, the eminent ornithologist.* 



Mr. J. A. Allen, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Cam- 

 brige, Mass., reviewed this list in the American Naturalist for May, 



* The thirty-two species thus introduced upon Doctor Brewer's authority were the follow- 

 ing: Sphyrapicus varius, Tyrannus verticalis, Contopus borealis, Empidonax flaviventris, 

 Hylocichla fuscescens, Hylocichla swainsonii, Thryomanes bewickii, Regulus satrapa. 

 Protonotaria citrea, Helminthophila celata, Helminthophila peregrina, Dendroica penn- 

 sylvanica, Dendroica dominica albilora, Wilsonia pusilla, Pinicola canadensis, Carpo- 

 dacus purpureus, Spinus pinus, Loxia americana, Loxia leucoptera, Poospiza bilineata, 

 Melospiza lincolni, Calamospiza melauocorys, Cyanospiza aincena, Scolecophagus ferru- 

 gineus, Corvas carnivorus, Charadrius dominicus, Phalaropus tricolor, Macrorhamphus 

 scolopaceus, Tringa fuscicollis, Ereunetes pusillus, Symphemia semipalmata, and Cygnus 

 buccinator. It is worthy of note that all these species reported by Doctor Brewer in 1872 as 

 occurring in Kansas have been verified by subsequent captures, with the exception of the 

 eight following: Empidonax flaviventris, Dendroica dominica albilora, Pinicola canaden- 

 sis, Loxia americana, Loxia leucoptera, Poospiza bilineata, Thryomanes bewickii, and 

 Hylocichla fuscescens. 



