200 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 89 



be objected to on the ground that it is inconvenient to find 

 any species because it is out of ahgnment with the Check- 

 List, one would answer that the purpose of this paper is not 

 to show the systematic relationships, but rather groupings ac- 

 cording to times of migration. Even if it were possible, in 

 any list arranged according to taxonomic relationships, to 

 show those relationships accurately, which is avowedly im- 

 possible, the inconvenience of such a list when used in almost 

 any sort of field work is considerable, so considerable that 

 some other arrangement must often be devised. The only 

 general utility arrangement is the alphabetical one. 



Where the records are less than twelve in number it is likely 

 that additional records covering a number of years will change 

 the date here given as the median. In such cases, then, this 

 paper claims only to give a basis upon which further work 

 may be done. It is entirely possible that any of the dates 

 given here as first seen may be moved forward by later re- 

 cords. They are of value only in showing what the range 

 of variation may be, and also in showing that the birds are 

 held back by a backward spring, and encouraged to move 

 northward early in an early spring. 



It will be noted that there is very marked disagreement in 

 the dates of " Last seen." The irregularity is rather more 

 marked among the water birds than among the land birds. 

 The very late date of the Mallard in 1904 possibly indicates 

 that the pair seen was breeding, although no nest was found. 

 Color is lent to this supposition by the finding of a female 

 Mallard in the marshes of Bay Point on the last day of June, 

 1914. The case of the Olive-backed Thrush (June 13, 1905) 

 cannot be explained in this way. The single individual seen 

 did not seem to be abnormal. There is a strong suspicion 

 that the single Semipalmated Plover recorded on June 17, 

 1904, was a wounded bird. It flew without difficulty when 

 approached too closely, but permitted an approach within five 

 feet. The other June records are not particularly notable, 

 since mv records show a consid'crable number of early June 

 " lists " for transient species. 



