196 Deane, Letters of J. J. Audubon and S. F. Baird. [ A "^ 



success. In fact, pusilla of Swainson and Richardson remained 

 a sort of 'bug-a-boo' until Mr. Brewster finally disposed of it as 

 unrecognizable. (See Auk, Vol. XII, p. 157.) 



" The letters of Wm. Baird to his brother throw some interest- 

 ing side lights on the history of these new flycatchers, and for the 

 privilege of making extracts from them I am indebted to Miss Lucy 

 H. Baird. William was then in Washington, but evidently kept 

 fully in touch with bird matters at Carlisle. Under date of Aug. 

 24, 1841, he writes, in comment on Audubon's letter of July 29: 

 'I am not at all surprised that Audubon thinks the Yellow-bellied 

 Flycatcher to be pusilla.' He, it will be noted, had identified 

 'minimus' as a female or young of 'pusilla' and ' flaviventris' as 

 the adult male. On Jan. 7, 1842, William Baird writes: 'Mr. 

 Audubon must be a much cleverer fellotv than I supposed him to 

 be. His present of the biography was very kind. You know I 

 told you in the fall that the little Yellow-bellied Flycatcher answered 

 pretty well to Richardson's plate of Tyrannula pusilla, but Town- 

 send l said he had seen thousands of the bird on the Columbia and 

 pronounced our little bird not to be the pusilla, however, I think 

 Audubon right.' 



"Spencer Baird still seemed to think one or both were new, and 

 advocated publishing them, but William wrote on Feb. 1, 1842, 

 strongly discouraging this idea. By June 4, 1843, however, he 

 had come round to his brother's view and says: 'I think we had 

 better publish as soon as possible in the Journal of the Philadelphia 

 Academy. ... At all events the Rocky Mountain bird and our 

 Yellow-belly are different, one must be new and those fellows in 

 Philadelphia (who, by the way, know little or nothing) would 

 sooner believe the bird got out there to be pusilla than ours. We 

 might for the matter of that, describe either and they would not 

 know whether we were right or wrong.' On the strength of this 

 the paper was written and submitted to the Philadelphia Academy, 

 and on July 16, 1843, we have the following from Wm. Baird: 'I 

 received a letter from Townsend. He says Cassin wrote to him 

 about the birds we described and sent on. I suppose he wanted 

 Townsend's opinion. Townsend wrote to him that he had no 



1 John K. Townsend, who visited the Columbia River in 1834, was now located 

 in Washington. The bird he saw was probably trailli. 



