296 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



Dr. Brewer's assertion, as far as it may be judged by the context, was based 

 on recollection of his personal experience or of that of some of his friends. It is 

 materially weakened, however, by the fact that, only a few years before making 

 it, he had stated with equal positiveness, in connection with an attempt to dis- 

 credit Nuttall's testimony,! t^^t the Black-throated Bunting " is certainly very 

 rare " ^ in Massachusetts. 



Dr. Allen has assumed that " Nuttall, in his account of the notes and habits 

 of this species, as observed here, has described the peculiar song and habits of 

 the Yellow-winged Sparrow {Cotnrnicidtis passerinus Bon.) with remarkable apt- 

 ness, which species he evidently mistook for the Black-throated Bunting."^ In 

 my opinion, however, there is nothing in Nuttall's account to justify the belief 

 — or even suspicion — that he could have made any such mistake. On the con- 

 trary everything that he says of the birds which he observed seems to me to 

 indicate that they must have been Black-throated Buntings. His description of 

 their songs is especially convincing evidence to this effect, for to my mind it is 

 one of the best renderings that have ever appeared in print of the song of 

 Spisa americana. 



But if Nuttall was somewhat vague and Brewer obviously self-contradictory 

 regarding the former occurrence of the Dickcissel in Cambridge the fact that the 

 species has been found here, on at least one occasion, is definitely established 

 by the evidence of the late Mr. J. Elliot Cabot who, under date of March 21, 

 1 899, wrote me as follows : " Black-throated Buntings appeared conspicuously 

 one spring (probably 1839) in the large field which then extended from Jas. 

 Lowell's house [Elmwood] to the Willows and across from the Causeway [Mount 

 Auburn Street] to Brattle St. I shot one, male, but no more, as they appeared 

 to be breeding. I did not see them elsewhere, nor ever before or since." 



If I am not mistaken in my somewhat dim recollection of this field before 

 it was graded and otherwise adapted for house lots, it included tracts which 

 might well have been described in Nuttall's words as "high, fresh meadows 

 near the salt marshes," and it is by no means improbable that he, also, saw 

 Black-throated Buntings here. He may have referred, however, to meadows 

 lying near the Mystic River — easily accessible in his day from his home in the 

 Botanic Garden, for the intervening region was not then cut up by streets and 

 railroads, and it contained but few houses. 



Within more recent times the Dickcissel has been met with in Watertown, 

 where, on June 26, 1867, Mr. John Thaxter shot a female that appeared to be 



IT. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 

 1832, 462. 



^Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, II, 1S74, 65. 

 ^ J. A. Allen, Proceedings of the Essex Institute, IV, 1864, 84. 



