4IO General Notes. \oa. 



sub-specific name, when it radically disagrees with or is contradictory to 

 the characters given in the diagnosis or description based upon it." This 

 ruling, if strictly enforced, precludes the use of the name leucogaster for 

 Baird's Wren. Under such circumstances, following the directions given 

 in the Code, the bird must be " reintroduced into science under a new 

 name, as a new species, and with a proper description." Mr. Ridgway 

 (Auk, IV, 1887, 349) long ago maintained that Dr. Hartlaub described 

 Baird's Wren, as T/iryotkorus murtnus, in 1852 (Rev. et Mag. de 

 Zool., 2d S6r., IV, 4), — twelve years before Baird called it Thryothorus 

 be-ivickii leucogaster (Gld.), and twenty-eight years before Messrs. Salvin 

 and Godman again introduced it as Thryothorus bairdi. 



Baird's Wren has figured in both the first and second editions of the 

 A. O. U. Check-List as Thryothorus bezvickii bairdi (Salv. & Godm.). In 

 the Eighth Supplement to the Check-List (Auk, XIV, 1897, 131), this 

 name is changed to T. b. leucogaster Baird {nee Gould!) in compliance 

 with the views of Dr. Coues (Auk, XIII, 1896,345). It seems to me that 

 Mr. Ridgway, although starting with the false premise that Troglodytes 

 leucogaster Gld. equals Cyphorhinus fusillus Scl., arrived at the correct 

 name for Baird's Wren when he called it Thryothorus beivickii tnurinus 

 (Hartl.). If Mr. Ridgway's determination of tnurinus be questioned, it 

 should be tested by an appeal to Dr. Hartlaub's types in the Museums of 

 Bremen and Hamburg ; if it prove erroneous, then the name bairdi 

 Salv. & Godm. becomes available as the subspecific name for Baird's 

 Wren. After what has been shown above concerning Baird's acquaint- 

 ance with the type of Troglodytes leucogaster Gld., it seems no longer 

 justifiable to identify it with Cyphorhinus pusillus Scl., which should 

 now be knOAvn as Hemiura pusilla (Scl.), not H. leucogastra (Gld.). — 

 Walter Faxon, Museum of Cotnparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 



Rare Birds in the Vicinity of Philadelphia.' — On Sept. 5, 1S94, a spec- 

 imen of Co7itopus borealis was secured near Holmesburg, Pa., and on May 

 18, 1S95, a specimen of Empidonax traillii alnorum was secured. 



This is, I believe, the first definite record for the latter in this part of 

 the State, as lam unable to find any in Stone's 'Birds of Eastern Pennsyl- 

 vania and New Jersey.' 



While collecting in Tinicum Township, Delaware Co., Pa., May 15, 

 1897,1 secured n \na\Q Piranga rubra. This is the third record during 

 the last twenty years for this species in this part of the State. — H. W. 

 Fowler, Holmesburg, Philadelphia, Pa, 



Notes on Some Ontario Birds. — Occasionally Brunnich's Murre {Ifria 

 lomvia) has been reported in Lake Ontario late in the fall and in early 

 winter; in fact this bird is not an infrequent visitor at Kingston in the 



' Republished, with an addition and correction, from the July number of 

 'The Auk' (XIV, p. 326), where the authorship was accidentally credited to 

 Mr. Witmer Stone. — Edd. 



