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 



