AVERY BIRD COLLECTION 81 
embryonic ornithologists with members of the sparrow 
family. His journal records of his first specimens are 
quite interesting and are given here practically in toto. 
The first, an adult male (No. 16, old series) was taken 
June 9, 1876, at Greensboro, and presented to the Smith- 
sonian Institution. After recording the measurements, 
color of feet and bill, and the fact that the stomach con- 
tained insects, the Doctor writes: “This is a most in- 
teresting specimen to me. I think I recognize in his sum- 
mer dress an old acquaintance; voice, manners, dress all 
completely changed. It must be the sparrow that sings 
so sweetly in the hedges and in the foliage of evergreens 
in winter. It is possible that this bird spends his sum- 
mers here and I had never found it out. Go to Wash- 
ington little fellow. Professor Baird can tell all about 
you.” 
A few days later, June 17th, he records an adult female 
(No. 21, old series) and writes: “This sparrow the same 
with No. 16, presented to the Smithsonian Institution, 
resembles most nearly Passerculus savanna, the savanna 
sparrow (Genus 65 of Coues’ ‘Key to North American 
Birds’). My specimens differ, however, though not es- 
sentially, from the sparrow described in the ‘key’ as the 
savanna sparrow. The markings about the breast of 
mine are not the same. 
“How little we use our eyes is proven to me by the 
discovery of this sparrow, which I have always taken 
for the chipping sparrow and should always have done 
so, if I had not heard his curious insect-like, hardly dis- 
tinguishable from a cricket’s, song. If this is the sa- 
vanna sparrow he is completely metamorphosed, and close 
inspection could alone discover the resemblance to that 
bird. The savanna sparrow has in wiuter a whistle 
something like the words ‘see! see! see!’ much prolonged. 
Everyone is acquainted with him, who takes notice of 
anything. Even the flight of my bird is not like that of 
the savanna sparrow. He flies like a wounded bird es- 
pecially just before he lights, not with the usual irregular 
flight of the sparrow, up and down, this side and that 
side. This however is nothing unusual in the breeding 
