Vol. xivn ^ 7 A- . 



jgg J General Jvotes. 



321 



and Putnam's 'Birds of Essex Co.') exclude A. caudacutus altogether! 

 Even Dr. Coues (Proc. Essex Inst., V, 186S, 2S2), by a lapsus corrected 

 in 'New England Bird Life,' I, 251, recorded the Sharp-tails of Rye 

 Beach, N. H., as Seaside Sparrows, and J. Matthew Jones (' Forest and 

 Stream,' XII, 1879, 106) in his list of the birds of Nova Scotia included 

 the Seaside Sparrow as an abundant summer resident of that Province, 

 arriving there during the latter part of March ! From what is now known 

 concerning the breeding range of A. tnaritimus, we are warranted in 

 suspecting that Brewer (Hist. N. A. Birds, I, 1874, S^o). too, fell into a 

 similar error in saying that a few pairs of Seaside Sparrows, " identified 

 by Mr. Audubon," bred in the marshes of Stony Brook, near Boston, in 

 1S36 and 1S37. 



However that may be, the eastern limit of the breeding range of the 

 Seaside Sparrow, so far as now observed, is the western shore of Nar- 

 ragansett Bay, beyond which it occurs only as a verv rare straggler. The 

 first unquestionable Massachusetts specimen was killed at Nahant in 

 August, 1877, by Geo. O. Welch, and recorded by Brewer (Bull. Nuttall 

 Orn. Club, HI, 1878,48; Proc Boston Soc. Nat. Hist, XIX, 187S, 260). 

 This specimen (now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, No. 221) is a young male with a sharply streaked breast; it was 

 identified by Baird as a Seaside Sparrow " in the plumage i-egarded by 

 Audubon as a distinct species, and called by him MacGillivray's Finch." 

 Another Massachusetts specimen, an adult female shot by Dr. L. B. 

 Bishop on Monomoy Island, Cape Cod, April 14, 1S90, was recorded bv 

 J. C. Cahoon in 'The Auk,' VH, 1890, 2S9. — Walter Faxon, Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 



What is Fringilla macgillivraii Aud. .?— In 1835 Audubon (Orn. Biog., 

 II' 1S35, 2S5) described under the name Fritigilla macgillivraii a dark- 

 colored Seaside Finch, discovered by Bachman in the salt marshes of 

 South Carolina. Figures of this bird, drawn at Charleston by Audubon's 

 son, were announced as finished, but the plate did not reach London in 

 time to be engraved and published till two years later (Birds of America, 

 Vol. IV, 1837, PI. CCCLV). In a subsequent volume of the 'Ornitho- 

 logical Biography' (IV, 1S38, 394) Audubon extended the range of 

 MacGillivray's Finch so as to include similar birds found on the coast 

 of Louisiana and Texas. 



In 18S8 Mr. Allen (Auk, V, 1888, 284) described under the name 

 Ammodramus marititnus peninsiilxe a small, dark race of the Seaside 

 Sparrow from Tarpon Springs and Cedar Keys, on the western coast of 

 Florida, at the same time identifying with this form a series of specimens 

 from Grand Isle, La. In the following number of 'The Auk' (p. 426) 

 Mr. Allen pronounced a bird from the coast of Georgia to be A. m 

 peninsula;, and in the second edition of the A. O. U. Check-List the 

 distribution of this subspecies on the Atlantic coast embraces South 

 Carolina, the type locality of Fringilla macgillivraii. 

 41 



