238 



Recent Literature. 



range during the breeding season," has not actually been ascertained to 

 breed in the Canadian Fauna at all. Boardman alone has catalogued it 

 as a rare " suminer visitant," but none of the recent investigators have 

 detected it excepting in the migrations. Its southward range in summer 

 is much more likely to prove limited by the Hudsonian than the Canadian 

 Fauna. 



Ccrthia familiaris. — The statement that " the Brown Creeper is resi- 

 dent throughout New England and a common bird in all suitable localities" 

 is perhaps not sufficiently qualified by the reservation that it breeds 

 "chiefly in the Canadian Fauna." The three southern New England 

 States have now been comparatively well explored, and the record by Mr. 

 Allen of a nest seen at Springfield, and another by Dr. Brewer of one 

 found near Taunton, with Mr. Merriam's simple statement that it "breeds" 

 in Connecticut, are all the reliable data that we have for attributing it to 

 the Alleghanian Fauna of New England. Opposed to this is the great 

 mass of negative testimony on the part of numerous local observers who 

 have never found the bird in summer at all. While it must be admitted 

 that there is something to be said on both sides of the question, we cannot 

 at present believe that the breeding of the Creeper south of the Canadian 

 Fauna is otherwise than a rare and exceptional occurrence. 



Anthus ludovicianus. — "The manner of the Titlark's presence in New- 

 England" is decidedly not "similar to that of the Shore Lark " for, as 

 Mr. Purdie has insisted (Bull. N. O. C., Vol. I, p. 73, Sept. 1S76 and II, p. 

 17, Jan. 1877), the former normally occurs only as a spring and fall migrant, 

 while the Shore Lark regularly winters. Dr. Brewer is the sole authority 

 for the wintering of the Titlark in Massachusetts, and if there was no mis- 

 take about the instances he records they were unquestionably exceptional. 

 The negative evidence in this case is unusually conclusive. It would not 

 be difficult to produce a dozen reliable persons who have had many years' 

 experience in winter collecting along the Massachusetts coast who yet 

 have never seen a Titlark there after November. Our own experience 

 is that the species arrives from the north about the middle of September, is 

 at the height of its abundance during the latter part of that month and the 

 first half of October, and wholly disappears before the close of Novem- 

 ber to reappear in April, when it is less frequently seen and apparently 

 more irregular in its movements. 



Dcndroeca ccerulcscens. — Despite the fact that three identified nests of 

 the Black-throated Blue Warbler have been found in Connecticut, " its 

 local distribution in New England " cannot fairly be considered as " coin- 

 cident" with that of Dendrceca vireiis. The latter breeds regularly 

 throughout the whole of New England and is, if anything, rather com- 

 moner in summer in the pine woods of Eastern Massachusetts than among 

 the spruces and firs of the more northern States, while the Black-throated 

 Blue Warbler is, to say the least, mainly confined to the Canadian Fauna. 

 The statement that " it has been observed in summer in Massachusetts " 

 presumably relates to Allen's record (Birds of Springfield, p. 62) of its 

 being "found in the breeding season on Mt. Holyoke (C. W. Bennett) 



