Vol \£F ir l General Notes. 231 



Let me emphasize that I mean no implication other than an error of 

 judgment. We all make mistakes. I am guilty of having launched 

 some worse ones than the above, as elsewhere acknowledged. We must 

 all work to clarify our horde of published records, if we want to make 

 them of service in our study of geographic distribution and variation, if 

 our conclusions are to be sound. It is very easy to put a mistake into 

 print, but pitiably difficult to suppress it, as many of us know who have 

 traced quoted errors through decades of literature. — Joseph Grinnell, 

 Pasadena, California. 



The American Scoter, Limpkin, and Ipswich Sparrow in South 

 Carolina. — In the A. O. U. Check-List for 1895, the range of the Ameri- 

 can Scoter (Oidemia americana) is given as "south in winter to New 

 Jersey, the Great Lakes, Colorado and California." Dr. Eugene Edmund 

 Murphey has given me permission to announce the capture of a male of 

 this species which he secured on May 7, 1903, in Bulls Bay. The speci- 

 men is in very worn plumage, so much so that many of the primaries and 

 rectrices are skeletonized, which shows that it undoubtedly wintered here. 

 This record makes the first for South Carolina, and according to the A. O. 

 U. List, the first for the Atlantic coast south of New Jersey. This speci- 

 men is now in my collection. 



I am also indebted to Dr. Murphey for the privilege of recording the 

 capture of two Limpkins (Aramus i/i'/anteus) that were taken at Twiggs 

 Dead River, Aiken County, South Carolina. One of them, an adult male 

 was taken by Mr. W. H. Twiggs, October 18, 1890, and preserved by Mr. 

 George P. Butler, of Augusta. Georgia. This specimen is now in my col- 

 lection. The negroes on the plantation told Mr. Twiggs that there had 

 been a pair of the birds, but that they had killed and eaten one a few days 

 before. This record is a very important one, as the Limpkin has not been 

 taken before in any part of the United States except in Florida. In 1894, 

 I found this species breeding abundantly on the Wacissa River, Florida, 

 which brought its range to within eighteen miles of the Georgia line. (See 

 'The Auk,' October, 1895, p. 366.) 



On December 26, 1905, I secured a fine specimen of the Ipswich Sparrow 

 (Passerculus princeps) on Long Island, South Carolina, and on January 2, 

 1906, I shot another on the same island. Both specimens were moulting 

 the feathers about the pileum and auriculars. As these were the first 

 specimens I had ever seen in their natural environment, I determined to 

 explore Bulls Island, which is covered along almost the entire length (ten 

 miles) with wild oats {Zizania miliacea) , which is well adapted to the wants 

 of this bird. On January 8, 1906, I hunted the island most thoroughly, 

 but among the hundreds of Savanna Sparrows (F'assirculus sandwichensis 

 savanna) that were everywhere I could not detect a single princeps among 

 them. Upon exploring a bleak and isolated spot fronting the beach 

 (where the Savanna Sparrow was absent) I saw three princeps together 

 and succeeded in securing two of them that day — the other being so 



