186 Harris, Notes on Harris's Sparrow. LApril 



journal, containing the record of his trip up the Missouri, was pub- 

 lished in 1839, while volume two, covering the period when the 

 Sparrow was taken, did not appear until 1841. Had he published 

 both volumes simultaneously in 1839, his specific name comata 

 would of course be current. It is interesting to note that though 

 he took his first specimen just fifteen days after Nuttall had taken 

 the type, and at a time when the bulk of the migrants had passed 

 north, he had overlooked an opportunity of being the actual dis- 

 coverer during the previous April, when he had been in the direct 

 migratory path of the Sparrow at the season of its greatest abund- 

 ance there. 



Nuttall himself had overlooked an opportunity of discovering the 

 bird twenty -four years earlier, and had his attention at that time 

 been directed to birds as well as plants, he would no doubt have 

 become acquainted with the species. Referring to the Journal 

 of his companion, 1 John Bradbury, an English botanist, it is found 

 that they passed through this region during the spring migration 

 of 1810, and while Nuttall's absent-minded preoccupation in col- 

 lecting plants was a standing joke among the voyageurs, Bradbury 

 was somewhat more alive to ornithological possibilities, and has 

 left many entertaining, and a few valuable notes on the better 

 known birds. They had spent April 8th and 9th at Fort Osage, 

 now Sibley. Jackson County, Missouri ; and the writer knows of no 

 more certain place to find Harris's Sparrows in early April than 

 in the timber and thickets of this bottom land. 



The Lewis and Clark party had passed through this region in 

 June, 1804, and again early in September, 1806, and Thomas Say 

 of the Long Expedition had been here in August, 1819. Maximil- 

 ian was therefore the first ornithologist to enter the range of this 

 species while the birds were in transit. 



The last "discoverer" was Edward Harris, in whose honor 

 Audubon gave the bird its vernacular name. The memorable 

 voyage of Audubon and Harris, together with Bell, Sprague, and 

 Squires, up the Missouri River in 1843 is too well known to require 

 comment. A few quotations will serve in connection with the 

 story of the Sparrow. On May 2 the party passed the point in 



1 Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810, & 1S11 &c. By J. Bradbury. 

 Liverpool, 1817. 



