THE IPSWICH SPARROW. 29 



Ipswich Sparrow was purchased from the collector, Mr. Clothrie [it should 

 be Clothier] Pierce, for a Western Grass Finch, and it was so labelled 

 until the da}' I picked out 3'our series of Sparrows, when I detected its true 

 identity.' This largely extends the habitat of this comparatively new species, 

 heretofore only recognized on the sand hills of the Atlantic Coast." A 

 couple of years later this record was challenged in Cooke's ' Bird Migration 

 in the Mississippi Valley ' (p. 188), where it is stated "there is reason to 

 suspect that the specimen really came from the coast of New England, the 

 error having arisen from a transposition of labels." I have carefully 

 examined the specimen, and investigated its history as far as possible. It 

 is apparently a female frinccfs, judging by size (not a male as the label 

 indicates), although it certainly resembles quite closely one or two extremely 

 pale male specimens of the Western Savanna Sparrow occurring among 

 some two hundred examined. Now, Mr. Pierce's labels were ordinary 

 tags, and they were notoriously loosely tied. Many came oft' entirely, and 

 his lot of birds from Texas is said to have lain in the drawers of one New 

 England dealer before it passed into the hands of another from whom 

 Mr. Sennett obtained the specimen. Dealers are fallible, even with the 

 best of intentions. A loose Texas label accidentally attached to an 

 unlabelled Ipswich Sparrow, of which there were said to have been a 

 number in near proximity, is a far more plausible explanation than 

 to assume that an Ipswich Sparrow was found two hundred and fitty 

 miles from the seacoast and over one thousand from the nearest, and 

 most southern, point from which it has ever been recorded. Of course 

 with wings such an excursion is not impossible, but it is scarcely con- 

 ceivable that a northern, coast-frequenting species would make such a 

 trip for pleasure, while a storm theory is hardly tenable, because storms 

 carry our birds northward and eastward, not southward and westward. 



Resuming again the history of the species at the point where we 

 digressed, we find Mr. Brewster saying of it in 1876 (Bull. N. O. C, 

 p. 18) : ". . . the establishment of a fixed fact like that recently developed, 

 of the regular seasonal appearance in considerable numbers of Passerculus 

 frincefs along our New England coast, cannot fail to prove of the utmost 

 practical value to the ornithologist, and reflectant of great and lasting credit 

 on the fortunate discoverer." In 1878 Dr. J. A. Allen gave the Ipswich 

 Sparrow in his list of birds of Massachusetts as a "rare winter visitant, 

 occurring chiefly near the coast. Has been met with from Prince 

 Edward's Island and New Hampshire to Long Island." " Prince Edward's 

 Island" must be a slip of the pen, for the species has never been taken 

 there. In that year Dr. T. M. Brewer remarked that " the gradual 

 accumulation of observations in reference to this new and rare species 



