26o MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



I can cite but one definite record of the occurrence of Holboll's Redpoll 

 in the Cambridge Region, that of a specimen in the collection of Dr. Arthur P. 

 Chadbourne, which was taken in Lexington on March lO, 1890, by Mr. Walter 

 Faxon. ^ 



All four of the forms above enumerated associate freely with one another, 

 and all, no doubt, are occasionally represented in a single flock ; but Holboll's 

 Redpoll is of very rare and perhaps only accidental occurrence and the Hoary 

 Redpoll is never common. Some of the larger flocks contain a few Greater Red- 

 polls, but these birds do not seem to be ever very numerous in the Cambridge 

 Region, although they were positively abundant along the Massachusetts seacoast 

 in February, 1883. On the 19th of that month Mr. H. M. Spelman and I took 

 thirteen specimens at Revere Beach in about two hours, and on the 2 2d, at 

 Nantasket Beach, two young collectors, by a few random shots into an excep- 

 tionally large flock of Redpolls, secured forty specimens, of which six proved to 

 be linaria, and thirty-four rostrata ! 



As one sees them together in winter the forms just mentioned do not differ 

 appreciably in notes, habits or general appearance. It is true that rostrata and 

 holbccllii may be occasionally recognized by their superior size, and cxilipcs by 

 its bleached coloring, but Redpolls, as a rule, are so nervous and restless, and 

 when in large flocks are so constantly in motion and so likely to take their depar- 

 ture at any moment, that a prompt use of the gun is usually indispensable to 

 the positive identification of any particular bird, especially if it be a female or an 

 immature male. As a rule, however, it is quite safe to assume that a flock of 

 Redpolls met with in the Cambridge Region is made up chiefly, if not wholly, of 

 representatives of the typical form, linaria. 



[Acanthis brewsterii (Ridgw.). Brewster's Linnet. On the morning of November i, 1S70, 

 as I was looking for Woodcock in the Warren Run, Waltham (about half a mile to the south- 

 westward of the Waverley Oaks), a large number of Redpolls alighted in the top of a gray birch 

 near at hand and began picking the fruiting catkins to pieces to obtain the seeds. After watch- 

 ing them for a few moments I fired into the flock, killing seven birds, si.\ of which proved to be 

 typical A. linaria. The seventh lacked all traces of red on the crown and of dusky on the chin. 

 As its general coloring was not unlike that of a Pine Linnet I supposed at the time that it was 

 merely an aberrant example of that species, but Mr. Robert Ridgway, on examining it a year or 

 two later, pronounced it to be a variety of the Twite or Mountain Linnet of Europe, and named 

 it yEgioi/ius (flavirostris var.) Breivsterii.'^ In his ' Birds of North and Middle America,' ^ where 



> W. Brewster, H. D. Minot, Land-birds and Game-birds of New England, ed. 2, 1895, 472, 

 Appendix. 



■■'R. Ridgway, American Naturalist, VI, 1872. 433-434- 



^ R. Ridgway, Birds of North and Middle America, pt. 1. Bulletin of the United States National 

 Museum, no. 50, 1901, 92-93. 



