a kind of permanent inspiration to keener and wider obser- 

 vation. I hope other members of the Bird Club will test the 

 truth of this statement and will give the results of their work, 

 if not in this form, then in such a way that a revised list of 

 the Birds of Vermont may be issued and stand as a record 

 of accomplishment for the Club. 



SOME RARE BIRD VISITORS 



Inez Addie Howe, St. Johnsbury 



The summer of 1910 was rich in rare bird visitors to St. 

 Johnsbury. April 10 my attention was attracted by two pe- 

 culiar sparrows resting by the edge of a marshy spot. I 

 thought that they were Ipswich sparrows, a species which I 

 had seen once at the seashore. I followed them for a time 

 and they took a course due northeast. Later I verified my 

 suspicions by reference to the mounted specimens at the Fair- 

 banks museum, and I am perfectly sure we may credit Ver- 

 mont with them as migrants. I referred the question to Mr. 

 Charles Maynard of Newtonville, Mass., who first named the 

 species, and he wrote me that they may have strayed up the 

 Connecticut valley and thence up the Passumpsic valley on 

 their way to Sable Island, Nova Scotia, their only known 

 breeding ground. Their winter migrations follow the Atlantic 

 coast as far south as the Carolinas. 



During the summer of 1910 I have many dates for meadow 

 larks, my first observations of this delightful visitor since 

 1896. His first appearance was at East St. Johnsbury, April 

 33, and on May 8 I found two pairs on a meadow in Concord, 

 two miles from East St. Johnsbury. They nested on this 

 meadow and I saw them repeatedly until after mid-August. 

 July 15 I saw the two pairs of old ones with several young 

 feeding on this meadow at twilight, and the males were sing- 

 ing rapturously. One was seen on a meadow along Moose 

 River in St. Johnsl)ury, four miles from the nesting ground, 

 ^lay i;. I saw a pair June 14 on the meadow in Lyndon 

 Center, where I first identified them in the spring of 1896, 

 in company with Prof. J. B. Ham, one of our charter 

 members. 



