Vol. xn Dutcher, Lone- Island Birds. 2v)K 



•893 J 



BIRD NOTES FROM LONG ISLAND. 



BY WILLIAM DUTCHER. 



"Betwixt th' extremes, two happier climates bold 

 The temper that partakes of hot and cold." 



DRYDEN. 



If the English poet had had Long Island in his mind when he 

 wrote these lines he could not have more happily described its 

 climatic conditions. Situated midway between tropical Florida 

 and arctic Labrador, it draws from each wanderers who find 

 there conditions sufficiently congenial to attract them beyond the 

 border of their habitats. The following records will show, with 

 force, how extremes may meet and make new records or sub- 

 stantiate old or vague ones. 



Urinator arcticus. Black-throated Loon.— This is the first positive 

 record of this species on Long Island, and also in New York State, and is 

 probably one of the very few specimens that have been taken in the 

 United States. Mr. J. P. Giraud, Jr., does not give it in his 'Birds of 

 Long Island,' published in 1844, although Mr. George N. Lawrence 

 includes it in his list published in 1866, notwithstanding there is not a 

 specimen in his collection, now in the American Museum of Natural 

 History in New York City. In Volume X of the 'Pacific Railroad 

 Reports,' published in 1858, Mr. Lawrence, who wrote the history of a 

 portion of the water birds, says, "I have never been so fortunate as to 

 meet with an American specimen of this bird." In the 'North American 

 Birds,' bv Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway it is considered "very rare, and 

 not evenpositively known to occur in the United States." (Water Birds, 

 Vol. II, p. 453.) The only United States record of which I know is of 

 one shot in Sandusky Bay in 1880 (vide Wheaton's 'Birds of Ohio,' p. 

 -65). It is with great pleasure, therefore, that I am able, through the 

 kindness of M. J. Earley, Esq., of this city, to record the capture of a 

 full-plumaged adult male. I append his letter. 



New York, May 16, 1893. 



Dear Sir : 



The bird which I sent to Mr. Wallace, taxidermist, to be 

 mounted, and which you inform me is a Black-throated Diver, was killed 

 by Gus Merritt, of City Island, on Saturday morning, April 29, between 

 Sands Point lighthouse and Execution lighthouse. He was one of a 

 party of young men who left City Island in the middle of the night to lie 

 in line for Ducks between Sands Point lighthouse and Execution light- 

 house. At daylight on Saturday morning the bird flew from the east. 



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