BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. 275 



244 [604] Spiza americana (Gmel). 

 Black-throated Bunting; Dickcissel. 



Formerly not uncommon summer resident, now accidental from the west. 



Nuttall 1 says : " They .... are not uncommon in this part of New England, 

 dwelling here, however, almost exclusively in the high, fresh meadows near the 

 salt marshes." 



Two in full song and about to breed were taken at West Newbury in June, 

 1873, and reported by Mr. H. A. Purdie.^ There is a fine adult specimen in the 

 collection of the late Dr. Charles Palmer, at Ipswich, probably taken in that 

 vicinity. One very fat bird in worn plumage was shot by my brother, Mr. W. 

 S. Townsend, at Magnolia, on August 27th, 1879, and is in my collection. 



An interesting article by Mr. S. N. Rhoads,^ entitled Exit the Dickcissel, 

 speaks of it as a bird of the past on the Atlantic coast plain. " This fact has 

 been emphasized by the experience of the last fifteen years. In that period 

 perhaps a dozen stragglers have been seen or shot in the extensive regions 

 reaching from South Carolina to Maine and from the eastern foothills of the 

 Alleghanies to the Atlantic coast. This large area was, in favored spots, 

 especially in the lowlands, meadows and valley bottoms of the tidal plain, the 

 breeding ground of thousands of this species in the days of Wilson, Audubon, 

 Nuttall, Cassin, Woodhouse and Baird In Massachusetts, their north- 

 eastern breeding limit, where they never were abundant as in the Middle States, 

 the records show a similar dwindling down to about 1880, all the last breeding 

 records occurring in the seventies." 



245 [605] Calamospiza melanocorys Stejn. 

 Lark Bunting. 



Accidental visitor from the west. 



A male was shot by N. Vickary at Lynn* on December 5th, 1877, and is 



1 Thomas Nuttall : A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada, vol. i, p. 

 462, 1832. 



2 W. A. Steams and Elliott Coues : New England Bird Life, vol. i, p. 280, 1883. 

 ■^S. N. Rhoads : Cassinia, p. 17, 1903. 



*}. A. Allen: Bull. Nuttall Om. Club, vol. 3, p. 48, 1878. 



