Burns — On Alexander Wilson. 149 



them, in error : Pipra polyglotta, however, was an unhappy 

 classification exchisive.ly his own, about on a par with some 

 previous works, where the Chat has been variously placed 

 with the Flycatchers, Tanagers or Chatterers. On the other 

 hand he straightened out the tangle in which European 

 writers had involved the two Eastern Orioles ; Bonaparte has 

 declared that no species of birds had occasioned so many 

 errors, and so great a multiplication of nominal spe.cies. His 

 knowledge of the Sparrows and Warblers was really wonder- 

 fully full for that time. Unquestionably, Dr. Shufeldt did 

 not intend to create a wrong impression when he wrote: "In 

 summing it up the.n, it will be seen that Wilson knew of but 

 thirty species of birds that belong to the family Friiii^illid(r, 

 while in our Check List of 1895 the same family is represented 

 by no fewer than eighty-nine species and seventy-four sub- 

 species — 1()3 birds in all." ^ One of our best authorities has 

 found that there are only thirty-six forms recognized today 

 in the section of the country covered by Wilson. 



According to Coues, \\'ilson gave faithful descriptions of 

 about 280 species, and colored illustrations of most of them, 

 — T8 indicated as new according to his Bibliographical list; 

 Ord calculated 2T8 species, following Wilson's catalogue, 56 

 being new; Bonaparte places the total number at 270 species; 

 and Baird, 257 species, not including Mclaiigo gaUopavo 

 Wild Turkey, and Gracitla barita Boat-tailed Grackle. men- 

 tioned in the index of volume vi. The whole number of 

 birds figured is 320. Actual number of .species both figured 

 and described is 262. making a total of 268 species made 

 known by their figure or description, or both; excluding the 

 three species figured but not separately distinguished, 39 were 

 new : and adding to this number the 23 species and sub- 

 species which he probably described sufficiently to differen- 

 tiate from the European, though he did not give them new 

 names, gives a total of i\2 newly described species and sub- 

 species. When one realizes that Europe had been drawing 



' Anioricn Sparrows •<\\\(\ Tlicir Kin, Sliootiiii; and Fisliiiijr, XXT, 

 ]S!:)7. pp. 307-308. 



