^"Isg^l Richmond, Bisr/iofs S,»io- S/>„rrorv. \ ^Z^ 



was known only from the very vague description of that author, 

 who followed Latham and Pennant. In 1870 the National 

 Museum received two specimens from Dr. J. I*'. Brandt, who 

 collected them many years before. These specimens, Nos. 60,161 

 and 60,162, are labeled "Ins. St. Paul, Aug. 5, 1843," and "Ins. 

 Kodiak, 1844," respectively. The specimen collected at " Ins. 

 St. Paul " (doubtless the small village of St. Paul on Kadiak, as 

 the bird is not known to occur on the Pribilof Islands) is insignis, 

 but the other, labeled " Ins. Kodiak," is cinerea. This latter 

 specimen has no doubt been a stumbling block to those who have 

 worked over these birds in the past, the very few genuine Kadiak 

 examples then in the collection being neutralized by this specimen 

 of cinerea. I suspect it to be from Unalaska, or some island on 

 which M. cinerea occurs, but erroneously labeled " Kodiak." At 

 the present time I have been able to examine only eleven 

 specimens from Kadiak, but these are all typical of 15i.scholT's 

 Song Sparrow. 



Since 1870 many specimens of Melospiza cinerea have been 

 received by the National Museum, collected chiefly by the natu- 

 ralists attached to the various government vessels sent to Alaska. 

 These specimens are principally from Unalaska, with a few 

 specimens from Adak, Atka and the Shumagins, as above stated, 

 and Mr. Littlejohn has recently obtained a large series from 

 Sannak. This additional material from Unalaska led to the 

 adoption of the name Melospiza cinerea (Gmel.) for the Aleutian 

 Song Sparrow, and Baird's Melospiza insignis was relegated to the 

 synonomy of that species. This change was made in 188 1 by 

 Mr. Ridgway,^ but Dr. Finsch^ had previously recognized both 

 forms in his paper on the ornithology of Northwest America. In 

 1883 Dr. Bean* gave a valuable table of measurements of these 

 Song Sparrows, and more recently Turner* and Nelson have 

 written on the species; the latter author, after describing the fall 



> Proc. U. S. N. M., Ill, 1880, p. 3. 



2 Abhandl. Nat. Ver. Brem., Ill, 1872, p. 41. 



3 Proc. U. S. N. M., V, 1882, p. 154. 

 4Contr. Nat. Hist. Alaska, 1886, p. 174. 



