VOl 'l906 HI ] General Notes. 225 



it to be the original publication, but before the Academy paper got into 

 print his 'Narrative' appeared. In the appendix to this 'Narrative,' 

 many of Townsend's original descriptions appear, and among them that 

 of "Cypeeius vauxi." That the publication of the Narrative was really 

 prior to that of the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, Vol. Mil, is evidenced by page 159 of the latter volume where 

 Townsend himself says (in speaking of "Sylvia tolmcei"): "I ventured 

 to insert a description of this bird in an appendix to my recently published 

 work, 'Narrative, etc.'" 



No. 424 of the Check-List should therefore stand: Choetura vauxi 

 (Towns.), and the authority: Cyprelus vauxi Towns., Narrative, 1839, 

 348. 



The authority as now given in the Check-List is further incorrect in 

 that it cites "Cypselus vauxii," where ''Cypeeius vauxii" appeared. — W. 

 Leon Dawson, Seattle, Wash. 



The Eastern Distribution of the Prairie Horned Lark: A Question 

 of Evidence. — In view of the data we possess to-day such a question 

 would seem irrelevant, were it not a fact that recent works of importance 

 reiterate the old dogma that this bird of the western prairies is rapidly 

 pushing its way eastward. 



It is true that our knowledge of its distribution has been worked out 

 from West to East in a "back-handed fashion," as has been well shown 

 by various data, and by several tabulations, part of which have aimed to 

 prove the foregoing assumption. 



First named in 1884 by Mr. H. W. Henshaw from a type selected from 

 Illinois specimens, it has been rather slowly identified until we now have 

 a fair knowledge of its distribution. 



It is especially noticeable that as soon as attention was called to it, it 

 appeared in various quarters where it had been confounded with its larger 

 eastern relative, Otocoris alpestris, and had actually been collected on the 

 Massachusetts coast a year before it was distinguished as a well marked 

 race. Yet its history began much earlier. In 1833 Audubon discovered 

 it at Bras d 'Or, Labrador, and about a year later figured it in the ' Birds 

 of America,' II, pi. CC, fl., and in the second volume of the 'Ornithological 

 Biography' (1834), page 575, he described it as the nuptial plumage of the 

 Common Horned Lark. 



Another early record of it is to be found in Maynard's 'Naturalist's 

 Guide,' where in 1870 it was published as having been seen in July, 1869, 

 in Eastern Massachusetts. This record is re-cited in Coues, ' Birds of the 

 Northwest' (p. 38, 1S74). 



The working out of its distribution in Maine (where it is the first migrant 

 to appear in spring, and one of the first birds to breed), is certainly the 

 result, in no small measure, of anticipation and careful search, and in no 

 less measure, to opportunity, and it seems very probable that the same 



