Nineteenth annual Meeting. 79 



plains to be variety texanus, and that they reached that portion of the country by 

 following north on the old military trails. I have written several persons in that 

 region for specimens, but as yet have no reply. 



Empidonax pusillus tbaillii (Aud.) Traill's Flycatcher. Mr. George F. Bren- 

 ninger, Beattie, Marshall county, has kindly sent me for examination a nest contain- 

 ing three eggs, taken July 17, 1880, in a thick second growth of timber, on the bank 

 of a small creek at Beattie; and writes that he found in the same vicinity quite a 

 number of nests. The earliest found, with a full set of eggs, was June 14th. In the 

 Goss Ornithological Collection is a female, which I shot at Neosho Falls, July 26, 1881; 

 and I have occasionally noticed the birds during the summer months, and have no 

 doubt but what they will prove to be quite a common summer resident. I congrat- 

 ulate Mr. Brenninger on the find, and thank him for calling my attention to the 

 same. The nests are usually placed in upright forks of the small limbs of trees and 

 bushes, from four to ten feet from the ground. A rather deep, cup-shaped nest, 

 closely resembling in form and make-up the nest of Dendroica wstiva, composed 

 chiefly of small stems or twigs from plants, and flaxen, fibrous strippings from the 

 same, with a few scattering blades of grass, and here and there an occasional feather, 

 and lined thickly and rather evenly with fine, hair-like stems from grasses; eggs, 

 three and four; dimensions of the three eggs sent, .70x.5.5, .70x.55, .69x.55, and of a 

 set of four eggs taken June 17, 1881, at Galesburg, Illinois, .72x.55, .72x..5.'>, .72x..')4, 

 .70x.54; cream white, thinly spotted and specked with reddish brown; thickest 

 around large end; in form, oval. 



SpizELiiA MONTicoLA OOHBACEA (Brewst.) Western Tree Sparrow. Prof. William 

 Brewster, in "Notes on some Birds collected by Capt. Charles Bendire, at Fort Walla 

 Walla, Washington Territory, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, October, 1882," vol. 7, p. 225, and 

 under the head of "species and varieties calling for special consideration," p. 228 

 gives a full description of the bird, from a careful examination and comparison of 

 the specimens before him with specimens of the typical eastern bird, and decided 

 that the difference in coloration and markings was sufficient to rank it as a variety 

 of S. rnonticola, and named the bird the Western Tree Sparrow, S. monticola ochracea, 

 giving its habitat, "Western North America, east to Dakota, north to Arctic ocean; 

 Alaska." On the 14th of October, 1883, I shot, at Wallace, several Tree Sparrows, 

 and I was impressed at the time with the thought that they were somewhat paler in 

 color, and different from specimens I had taken in the eastern part of the State; but 

 on comparison I reached the conclusion they were the young birds of the year, and 

 gave the matter no further thought until I noticed the bird entered in the A. O. U. 

 Check List as occurring in "western Kansas." I at once wrote to Professor Brew- 

 ster for typical specimens of both this and the eastern bird, which I received through 

 his friend, Mr. Arthur P. Chadbourn, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just before re- 

 ceiving the specimens, viz., October 2.5, 188fi, I killed three of the birds in Cheyenne 

 county (northwest corner of the State). I now find, in comparing the specimens, 

 that all the western birds, and a female in the Goss Ornithological Collection, taken 

 November 22, 1878, at Neosho Falls, are in every respect similar in color to Mr. 

 Chadbourn's specimen, labeled S. monticola ochracea, Ellis, Kansas, January, 1886. 

 The specimens examined from eastern Kansas are nearly all the true S. monticola, 

 the coloration being fully as rich and deep as that of the eastern specimen, taken in 

 Middlesex county, Massachusetts, December 1, 1882. I therefore enter the Western 

 Tree Sparrow as a winter resident, abundant in middle and western Kansas, and not 

 uncommon in the eastern portion of the State. The western specimens, however, 

 that I have examined, were all captured in the fall or early winter, and I should be 

 led to think it possible that further examination, especially of the birds in their 



