110 General Notes. LJan^ 



covered ground and the flatfish upturned roots involuntarily produced 

 this thought — ■ when suddenly, clear and loud, rang out the beautiful 

 notes of the Winter Wren. For a moment I was in doubt whether I was 

 really in Maryland or in Quebec, but if nothing else, the luxuriant growth 

 of rhododendron quickly dispelled any illusion. I had formerly never 

 heard that song here, or if I did, I did not know it, and therefore did not 

 put down this wren as a permanent resident for western Maryland, which 

 it now turns out to be. The Bobolink, by the way, was also recorded for 

 the first time for this vicinity, in a pasture near the village. 



Now, as to the anomaly in the A. O. U. Check-List regarding a species 

 of bird of the tops of our eastern mountains. For obvious reasons I did 

 not collect many birds on this last trip. But the few I took confirmed 

 a suspicion I had in my mind since my residence in that part of the 

 country. I took two male D. ccerulescens. I expected to find some pro- 

 nounced black on the back, to fit in with the description of D. c. cairnsi, 

 which, according to the Check-List in the resident variety, geographical 

 race or subspecies. They were adult males in high plumage, well colored. 

 But they were not cairnsi, as is borne out by a comparison with skins from 

 Canada and Illinois. That brings us into this dilemma: Either D. c. 

 cairnsi is not the prevailing form here, as stated in the Check-List, and D. c. 

 ccerulescens comes down to not only Pennsylvania, as stated there, but to 

 Maryland; or we have cairnsi and c&rulescens together here, which militates 

 against the underlying principle of geographic races and subspecies; or the 

 difference between the two is slight and not constant. If the last ex- 

 planation is correct, as I am inclined to believe, I should favor doing away 

 with the race cairnsi entirely. — C. W. G. Eifrig, River Forest, III. 



The Status of the Song Sparrow and the Chipping Sparrow as 

 Early Birds. — Since writing my notes on the ' Morning Awakening ' 

 printed in ' The Auk ' for April, 1913, I have been paying particular atten- 

 tion to the awakening of the Song and Chipping Sparrows as evidenced by 

 their earliest morning songs. These later observations confirm my convic- 

 tion that these two birds are much later risers than the Robin. In fact, I 

 should now place the Song Sparrow 25 or 30 minutes after the Robin, 

 instead of only 13 minutes as my earlier observations made it. This 

 discrepancy I account for by the greater care exercised in these recent notes 

 in eliminating from consideration all sporadic night songs and including 

 only the songs that indicated a permanent morning awakening. 



The new records are of six mornings in 1913 and five in 1914, all at my 

 house in West Roxbury, Mass. One Song Sparrow sang regularly both 

 seasons very near the house, and often another could be heard not far away, 

 while one or two Chipping Sparrows were always equally in evidence, and 

 no Robin sang near enough to drown the songs of the sparrows. Strange 

 to say, my notes include no records whatever of very early singing on the 

 part of the Chipping Sparrow, which leads me to suspect that the nocturnal 

 singing for which that species is well known may be chiefly confined, in 



