ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 47 



In my list are six or seven species given without defining the extent of 

 their distribution, — some of them, though found to my certain knowledge 

 all over New England, and beyond its borders, are only foimd in favorable 

 localities ; others probably have a more restricted range. In regard to all 

 these, my views as to the extent of their range are fully given elsewhere, 

 and, as your correspondent shows, are sufficiently known to him. Yet in 

 spite of this knowledge he did not scruple to attribute to me views which 

 he now shows he knew I did not entertain. This is especially noticeable 

 in the case of Vireo novehoracensis. Here, as it seems, he knew that it is 

 my recorded opinion that this bird rarely, if ever, goes north of Massachu- 

 Betts, yet he professes to understand me as signifying all New England, 

 when I had not said so, and when I had elsewhere — imrestricted as to 

 6pace — stated that I did not so believe ! 



And where are his facts demonstrating that Helminthophaga chr'ysoptera 

 is not a rare bird in New England? We have again only an opinion th^t a 

 bird must not be called rare if it regularly breeds here in numbers. The 

 numbers must be very small in this case, and the finding of the fourth 

 nest during ten or twelve years' search by hosts of collectors, is to be 

 spoken of in the future tense ! A bird that has only been found in a very 

 restricted area, perhaps a thousandth part of New England, and so un- 

 common that only two or three of its nests have ever been taken, must 

 not be spoken of as rare ! 



In the case of Coturnicuhis passerinus your correspondent is excusable 

 for misunderstanding my real meaning, as it is somewhat blindly ex- 

 pressed. What I intended to convey was, that while it is chiefly confined 

 to Southern New England, it is, as a general rule, rare throughout a very 

 extended region into Avhich it sparsely spreads itself. Wherever found it 

 is a species of very irregular and unequal distribution. It wanders into 

 Northern New England, and occurs even as far to the northeast as St. 

 Stephen, N. B. In all this extended area the localities in which it can 

 be said to be at aU common are restricted in area and few in number. 

 Your correspondent refers to its being exceptionally common in Nan- 

 tucket. All this while he well knew that the fact of its abundance on 

 that congenial island was well known to me. (See North American Birds, 

 Vol. I, p. 554, lines 20, 21 and 22.) 



More than forty years ago I ventured to 'publish a supplementary list 

 of the birds of Massachusetts (Boston Jour. Nat. Hist., I, 435). In this list 

 I placed inferentially and with a ? Polioptila ccerulea. From that day to 

 the time of the publication of my catalogue I have vainly sought for any 

 confirmation of my supposition. Your correspondent is the first to come 

 to my support and to confirm my conjecture, but, prior to May, 1875, 

 there is no " record " whatever confirmatory of its claim to be counted as 

 a bird of New England. Yet because, nearly two years after the prepara- 

 tion of my paper, your correspondent hears of its having been taken in 



