°1013 Hathaway, Notes on RhocU Island Bird 555 



cut I l A flock of five female and i wo m 



in \\ ■ on January L3, 1911, and fo thereafti i 



recorded in the March April 1911 " Bird-Lore." These are the first in- 

 stances of its occurrence in I 



Loxia leucoptera. W'nn i.-v. r joed C A flock of I 



this uncommon winter visitor were reported reeding on hemlock cones in 

 Johnston, November 20, 1906. I visited this locality on November 24 

 and secured three females from a flock of twenty-four. On Decembei 22 

 I shot two males al the same place and saw twelve others. They weri 



on January 13, 1907. Five females were on the ground under a large 

 hemlock picking up the Beede thai had fallen from the coin-. They were 

 very tame and allowed me to come within two feel of them before they flew 

 into the lower brancb.ee of the tree. 



Passerherbulus henslowi henslowi. Henslow's Sparbow. — A 

 mer resident occurring only in the southern pari of the state 

 Inn principally in the town of Charlestown. Perched on a weed stalk, 

 fence, -'one wall or rock in some old pasture grown up to weeds and bri* rs, 

 its plain little song resembling the words "se-lick " may !)<■ beard al all 

 hours of the day during the breeding season. I heard two male- singing 

 at Bridgetown, .May 10, 1903, one Augusl 5, 1905, near Niantic, two at 

 Quonochontaug May 11, 1906, one May 9, 1909, al Kingston, and May 13, 

 1910, in afield of some twenty acres in extent in Charlestown I heard seven 

 singing. On .June.",, 1910, 1 visited the Charlestown locality, and with the 

 aid of my son C. II. Smith Hathaway we dragged the fields with a rope in 

 an endeavor to find a aest, but with do result other than to collect two male-. 

 In I'.MI on May 28th, my son and I again dragged the old pasture, and we 

 had not proceeded more than a hundred feet when a female flushed from a 

 ne-t containing three fresh eggs and one of the Cowbird. We left the eggs 

 unmolested, continued our dragging and in about two hour- flushed anothei 



female from a tic-t with four eggS in exactly the same situation US the first 



one. set in a cluster of d< ind very open to view. The at 



built entirely of grasses lined with fine dead quite deeply cupped. 



I endeavored to collect the last female but was unsuccessful. She led me a 

 long chase, flying low from one clump of bayberry bushes to another and 

 instantly diving out of sight, finally disappearing. One very distinctive 

 character note.l was the chestnut brown color of the bird in flight. The 

 last sel found was incubated some seven w eight days. Returning to the 

 aest I carefully approached and succeeded in getting within two feet 



Of it. The bird v. a- on, in plain sight, and I could see the olive green feath- 



if the nape and the chestnut brown of the back with black streaks. In 

 attempting to touch her she sprang six feel into the air flirting and spreading 



her -harp pointed tail feather-, and flew in a zigzag manner into a nearby 



bayberry bush. In each instance the male- were singing within a hundred 

 feet of the ne-t . These are i he fir- 1 records of it- breeding iii this state. 

 Passerherbulus nelsoni nelsoni. Nelson's Spabbow. — Nelson's 



Sparrow occur- rarely during the fall migration in company with the 



