18 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 54. 



have not taken place as isolated phenomena, but have gen- 

 erally been accompanied by the intrusion of other species that 

 may or may not have been caused by the same set of condi- 

 tions. Prominent among these contemporary incursions, in 

 this section, has been the spread of the following species, — Lark 

 Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Dickcissel, and Cardinal. 

 Some of these have formed permanent residences, but others, 

 notably the Dickcissel, have, after a short persistence, vanished 

 again completely. In this latter case the extinction seems to 

 have been more general than with the rest and may possibly 

 have been caused by hostile influences in the southern ranges. 



The data upon the Yellow-breasted Chat in Michigan is 

 not very voluminous, but as a matter of record it may be well 

 to place what can be gathered in an enduring form for the 

 benefit of further workers. In the compilation of the follow- 

 ing I have been assisted by the various people whose names I 

 mention below. To these and to Dr. Ned Dearborn, Mr. 

 Ruthven Dean and Prof. W. B. Barrows, who has kindly as- 

 sisted me with the benefit of the notes he has gathered on the 

 subject, I must extend my sincere thanks for their cooper- 

 ation. 



The first record of the bird's occurrence in the state that I 

 can get track of occurs in Gibb's MS. of 1881, in which the 

 following note occurs : "Icfcria z'irciis. First taken Aug. 12, 

 1876, quite common until Oct. 2, 'TG, and not seen since. — Dr. 

 Atkin's MS. Birds of Ingham Co." Unfortunately the MS. of 

 the late Doctor has completely disappeared, and this is the onlv 

 authoritative record of his that we have on this subject. Prof. A. 

 J. Ccok had access to it when he wrote his Birds of Michigan 

 in 1893, and he quotes the following : "Exceedingly rare, occa- 

 sionally quite common" (Dr. Atkins). However, the many 

 misquotations in this work throw doubt upon all the rest that 

 cannot be ccnfirmefl through other sources, and render com- 

 plete acceptance dangerous. 



The next observations on the species were made by Jerome 

 Trombley. of Petersburg, Monroe Coimty, who found the 

 birds, and took two nests, ]\[ay, 1877, one of which, dated the 

 3Gth, is now in the ?\luseum of the Agricultural College. Of 



