Merriam on Birds of Lewis County, Neio York. 55 



ada West (Mcllwraith), aud abuadantly along the Labrador Coast 

 (Audubon and Coues). 



Concerning the " Loggerhead Shrike," the case, though in some 

 respects parallel with the above, is much more difficult of ex- 

 planation, and has given rise to much confusion, owing to the com- 

 plication arising from the close relationship existing between the 

 Southern and Western forms. Coues, in his '• Key," states that " ex- 

 treme examples of ludovicianus and excuhitoroides look very differ- 

 ent, but they are observed to melt into each other when many 

 specimens are compared, so that no specific character can be as- 

 signed," and if the doctor had substituted the term varietal for 

 specific, he would have hit equally near the truth. The fact is, 

 there is so little difference between Eastern examples of excuhitor- 

 oides and the Southern bird that they hiive often been confounded, 

 and it is practically almost impossible to distinguish them. My 

 own opinion is that the locality whence the specimen came fur- 

 nishes the most valuable clew to its identity. In a specimen 

 (<?. juv.) taken by Mr. Dayan at Lyon's Falls, Lewis County, New 

 York, September. 4, 1877, the light ash of the upper parts contrasts 

 strongly with the " dark plumbeous-ash " of typical Southern exam- 

 ples of ludovicianus in the cabinet of Mr. George N. Lawrence, to 

 whose kindness I am indebted for the comparison, and for many 

 other favors. In other respects the bird more closely approaches 

 the Southern form. The Western bird breeds abundantly in Ohio 

 (Wheaton), and was first observed in Canada West (near Hamilton) 

 by Mcllwraith about the year 1860, since which date it has bi-ed 

 regularly in that localit3\ Allen, in 1869, published in the "Ameri- 

 can Naturalist" (p. 579) the first record of its breeding in New York 

 State ("near Buffalo"), and Rathbun (in the list above referred to) 

 gives it as breeding at Auburn, in the central portion of the State. 

 Fred. J. Davis, Esq., informs me that he has taken several of its 

 nests in the vicinity of Utica, aud the fact of its breeding in Lewis 

 County (Dayau, above) completes its eastern range to the Adiron- 

 dacks. Beyond this barrier it is not, to my knowledge, found, ex- 

 cepting as a rare straggler ; and most of the New England speci- 

 mens have commonly been regarded as accidental visitoi's from 

 the South. Mr. Purdie, however, in this Bulletin (Vol. II, No. 1, 

 p. 21, 1877), records the capture of a "typical" specimen of var. 

 excuhitoroides at Cranston, R. I., September 2, 1873, by Fred. T. 

 Jencks. This is, so far as I am aware, the only recognized in- 



