344 NOTES ON THE 



anterior angle of chin, velvet-black. Wing feathers brown, 

 edged externally with dull bluish-brown. 



Length, about 5.75; wing, nearly 3 inches. 



Habitat, eastern United States to the Missouri. 



SPIZA AMERICANA (Gmelin). (604.) 

 DICKCISSEL. 



This bunting, so common in the country where I spent my 

 boyhood, eluded my observations for a good many years until 

 one morning in April a male presumably from a recent battle 

 with a rival, dashed into the fence very near me in a fearfully 

 excited condition in which he failed to recognize my presence, 

 thus giving me a coveted opportunity to see him in all his glory 

 before devoting him as a sacrifice to science. Encouraged by this, 

 I kept a sharp lookout for these birds, and enlisted the atten- 

 tion of several amateur collectors, who soon found they were 

 almost daily to be seen in a single restricted locality. The 

 following year, that spot was under constant scrutiny until 

 assured that not an individual had been seen in its vicinity up 

 to the 1st of June. But several miles from it a number of 

 them had been secured in another similarly situated locality. 

 It was found in both instances in the immediate vicinity of 

 plowed, and cultivated fields, but in dry, rich meadows bearing 

 a dense growth of wild grass, and a few shrubs, or bushes, 

 with an occasional, small- sized tree. A few only were flushed, 

 and only two or three shot, not wishing to drive them from a 

 locality presumably chosen to rear their young in. A few days 

 established the presumption when on the 23d of May their 

 mouths were observed to be occupied with straws. Although 

 repeated efforts were made to find the nests, only one was found 

 by a boy, who believed it was a Bluebird's, and only brought 

 away the eggs, four in number, that were barely addled. A sub- 

 sequent investigation established its identity, as that of the 

 Black- throat. 



The next two years following, I neither saw any of this 

 species, nor gathered any reports of it in the State, when on 

 the third year it reappeared in perhaps a little increased num- 

 bers but not in either of its former localities. 



In the autumnal migrations Prof. C. L. Herrick reported 

 them "quite abundant" in the vicinity of Minneapolis. Mr, 

 John Roberts and several others mentioned seeing them in the 

 spring. 



