2l8 General Notes. [£^ k 



intend to limit it to a consideration of Maine taken species because he 

 added to the first portion of the title 'and about the Islands of the Bay 

 of Fundy.' In many of Mr. Boardman's writings exact localities where 

 specimens were taken, such as Grand Menan, Indian Island, St. Stephen, 

 were given ; but in spite of this subsequent writers have called such rec- 

 ords Maine records, and cited the specimens recorded as being taken in 

 Maine. 



In 1S96-97, when preparing the manuscript of ' A List of the Birds of 

 Maine' for publication, Mr. Boardman and I desired to have his records 

 straightened out, as he realized he had been persistently misquoted by 

 many ornithologists of note. Accordingly Mr. Boardman went carefully 

 over all his records, and all entitled to be cited as birds of Maine are given 

 completely and correctly, as I was assured by Mr. Boardman, in 'A List of 

 the Birds of Maine,' while in the hypothetical list at the end of this work 

 reason for excluding many of the species previously accredited to Maine, 

 owing to the misquoting of Mr. Boardman, is given. 



Writers in the future should be careful not to accredit any species to 

 Maine upon the authority of quotations from Mr. Boardman's lists, or on 

 other authority directly or indirectly derived therefrom, unless such spe- 

 cies is given in the publication above referred to, or unless other positive 

 information of more recent date is at hand. It is perhaps well at this 

 stage to call the attention of ornithologists to the fact that Mr. Boardman 

 published a list entitled ' St. Croix Birds ' and other scientific lists in the 

 Calais 'Weekly Times' between November 23, 1899, and February 5, 

 1900. I wish to especially emphasize the fact that this St. Croix List is 

 not confined in its enumerations to Maine specimens, and that it does not 

 purport to be anything other than what the title taken in its very broad- 

 est sense would indicate, and that consequently many species recorded 

 there were taken or seen in New Brunswick. 



Though, as stated in the beginning, the attention of orn'thological 

 writers has been called to the facts herein stated more or less frequently, 

 yet the erroneous citation of Mr. Boardman's records by two writers 

 within the past month would indicate that many are still in ignorance of 

 the facts in the case. — O. W. Knight, Bangor, Maine. 



Swainson and Audubon. — The letter of Swainson to Audubon in 

 1 The Auk ' for January, 1905 (XXII, p. 31-34) solved a problem that per- 

 plexed me in 1900 while writing a biography of Swainson. I assumed 

 that Swainson's letter of "2d October 1830" (see Auk, Jan., 1S98, p. n-13) 

 might have been an answer to Audubon's of "22 Aug. 1830," inasmuch as 

 no subsequent letter from Audubon earlier than "6 June 183 1 " was in the 

 Linncean collection (see Osprey, V, 24). The letter of Swainson published 

 by Mr. Ruthven Deane, however, shows that such was not the case. It 

 is now clear that Audubon made his proposition for limited partnership 

 while in Manchester, in his letter dated "22 Aug. 1830" ; to this Swainson 

 responded in his letter dated "Thursday." (Thursday of August in 1830 



