181 
our great lakes at the height of the migrating season, or the bewildering 
influences of a wide-extended storm area, which causes these wanderers 
to lose their way or scatters birds far from their natural homes. These 
conditions are so sudden and their results are so unusual and in many 
cases almost entirely unexpected, that it is but rarely that one can take 
the opportunity or find available the material for very satisfactory study 
of the conditions and results. 
It has been my good fortune, since our last meeting, to have received 
some yery interesting information bearing upon the dispersal of birds by 
storms. To one of these I shall refer at this time. Brunnich’s Murre, a 
bird of the North Atlantic, which is seldom found far south of New Eng- 
land, and is never believed to have been authentically reported far from 
the ocean, has been taken in such localities as indicate that just before 
the middle-of December, 1896, some great storm must have driven a num- 
ber of these birds far inland and dispersed them far south along the 
Atlantic coast. They were found in Michigan, Western Indiana, in Ohio, 
and as far south as South Carolina. 
While at Indianapolis the last week in December, 1896, Prof. W. S. 
Blatchley, State Geologist of Indiana, told me of a strange bird that had 
been taken near there. His information was that it was some sort of a 
Guillemot. I learned it had been sent for mounting to Mr. J. HE. Beasley, 
at Lebanon, Ind., and that the same taxidermist had received others. 
Upon my return home I found a letter from my friend, Mr. Ruthven 
Deane, informing me that Mr. fF. M. Woodruff, of the Chicago Academy of 
Science, had received a Murre from Indiana. A few days later this infor- 
mation was supplemented by a letter from Mr. Woodruff, informing me 
that the specimen was Uria lomvia. 
In looking over my accumulated mail I found a report from Mr. A. 
W. Hamilton, Zanesville, Ind., of the capture of a specimen near there. 
Prof. EH. S. Moseley wrote me of the capture of four specimens near San- 
dusky, O., and Mr. J. HE. Beasley in a note said he had received four speci- 
mens. The total number of records received in a few days was ten. 
I give herewith data concerning the specimens. 
The first specimen mentioned above was brought to Mr. F. M. Noe, a 
dealer in natural history specimens, of Indianapolis, Dec. 17, 1896, by 
a boy, who told him it had been taken alive the preceding Sunday, Dee. 13. 
near Schofield’s old mill, on Fall Creek, about seven miles north of that 
