CORRESPONDENCE 177 



have them at Calais so I was not acquainted with them. 

 I shot several last winter and think their eyes were all 

 very light. One shot at Jacksonville had light eyes. I 

 am anxious to get home to look after birds' eggs as it 

 will soon be time for Warblers to nest." "I am glad," 

 he writes from St. Stephen, June 12, 1869, "you have 

 the Great Auk in your collection. You must try and 

 get bones enough this season to set up a good skeleton. 

 There should be plenty of bones at Grand Manan." On 

 August 1 of the same year he writes : "I got a new bird 

 for my list last week, a Black Vulture, Abrata. I got C. 

 Aura about eight years ago, but Atratus I never knew so 

 far north as cold New Brunswick before although I have 

 known of several to be taken in Massachusetts." In 

 this same letter he says : "I also got a duck I did not 

 know this spring, but think it was the female Labrador 

 Duck and nothing new only I did not have one, which 

 helps out my collection. A week ago last evening after 

 tea, we took a canoe and went up stream a mile or two 

 and I shot six Black Ducks and one Wood Duck pretty 

 well for after tea with ladies in the boat talking." 



"Yesterday," he writes on September 21, 1869, "I 

 shot some Sparrows, one of which I think was Lincoln's 

 Finch but am not sure. It looked very much like a 

 Savannah Sparrow except the yellow across the breast." 

 On October 1, 1869, after Prof. Baird had written him 

 about this specimen he again writes : "I cannot well 

 send the Finch as it is mounted. It is a common Sparrow 

 that I have always taken for nice specimens of Savannah 

 Sparrow, with yellowish breast. If Savannah Sparrow 

 does not have the yellowish breast it is probably the 

 Lincoln Finch. I have one or two skins of the Savannah 



