IO Goss, Additions to the Birds of Kansas. [January 



cup-shaped nest, closely resembling in form and make-up the 

 nest of Dendroica cestiva. Composed chiefly of small stems or 

 twigs from plants, and flaxen fibrous strippings from the same, 

 with a few scattering blades of grass, and here and there an occa- 

 sional feather, and lined thickly and rather evenly with fine hair- 

 like stems from grasses ; eggs, three and four. Dimensions of the 

 three eggs sent, . 70X .55, .70X .55, .69 x .55 ; and of a set of four 

 eggs taken June 17, 1SS1, at Galesburg, Illinois, .72 X .55, 

 .72 x .55, .72 x .54, .70 X .54 ; color, cream white thinly 

 spotted and speckled with reddish brown, thickest around large 

 end. 



Spizella monticola ochracea Brcvost. Western Tree 

 Sparrow. — Mr. William Brewster, in "Notes on some Birds 

 collected by Capt. Charles Bendire, at Fort Walla Walla, Wash- 

 ington Territory" (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Vol. VII, Oct. 1882, 

 p. 225), under the head of "species and varieties calling for 

 special consideration" (p. 228), gives a full description of this 

 form from a careful examination and comparison of the Fort 

 Walla Walla specimens with specimens of the typical eastern 

 bird, deciding that the differences in coloration and markings were 

 sufficient to rank it as a variety of S. ?/ionticola, and naming the 

 bird the Western Tree Sparrow, S. ?>w?iticola ochracea. He 

 gives its habitat as kW Western North America, east to Dakota, 

 north to Arctic Ocean ; Alaska." At Wallace, on the 14th of 

 October, 1SS3, I shot several Tree Sparrows, and thought at the 

 time that they were somewhat paler in color and different from 

 specimens I had taken in the eastern part of the State ; but on 

 comparison I reached the conclusion that they were the young 

 birds of the year, and gave the matter no further thought until I 

 noticed the bird entered in the A. O.U. 'Check-List' as occurring 

 in ''Western Kansas." I at once wrote to Mr. Brewster for typi- 

 cal specimens of both this and the eastern bird, which I received 

 through his friend, Mr. Arthur P. Chadbourne, of Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts. Just before receiving the specimens, I killed 

 (October 25, 1S86), three of the birds in Cheyenne County (north- 

 west corner of the State). I now find, on comparing the speci- 

 mens, that all the western birds, and a female in the Goss Orni- 

 thological Collection, taken November 22, 187S, at Neosho Falls, 

 are in every respect similar in color to Mr. Chadbourne's speci- 

 men, labelled S. monticola ochracea, Ellis, Kansas, January, 



