NOTES ON SOME OF THE RARER BIRDS OF 

 MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY J. A. ALLEN. 



(Continued from page 585. 



BAIRD'S SPARROW. Centronix Bairdii Baird. Mr. C. J. 

 Maynard while collecting Long-spurs and Snow Buntings on 

 the Ipswich sand-hills, December 4th, 1868, had the good ^ 

 fortune to shoot the first specimen* of this species thus far 

 obtained east of the Missouri, so far as known. No other 



u.iAat-V 



at least is yet on record, and but one other specimen seems 

 to be extant. This is one of Audubon's types collected near 

 the mouth of the Yellowstone, in the summer of 1843, and 

 now in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. 

 Audubon is the only naturalist who has previously met with 

 it. He reports it as common at the locality where he dis- 

 covered it, where he obtained both males and females and 

 its nest.f But very little is known respecting its migrations 

 or its distribution. Its discovery in Massachusetts was quite 

 unlocked for. Mr. Maynard thinks he saw others, but sup- 

 posing it to be some other species he made no especial 

 efforts to obtain them. In his notes kindly communicated 

 to me he remarks : "I saw other specimens, and am confident 

 that I detected it the preceding season, 1867. It is probable 

 that it is a regular .winter visitor from the north, accom- 

 panying the (7. Lapponicus and P. nivalis, for it does not 

 seem probable that it should occur regularly so far from its 

 usual habitat the distance being some over sixteen hundred 

 miles and not be found in the intermediate space." As he 

 further observes, his specimen somewhat resembles the Bay- 

 winged Sparrow (Poocoetes gramineus), with which inex- 

 perienced ornithologists might easily confound it. It is 

 | . 



*Mr. Maynard gives a good figure of this specimen in his book on Taxidermy 

 (" Guide to Naturalists in Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History ") now 

 publishing. 



t Birds of America, Vol. vii, p. 359, pi. 500. 



(631) 



