Local Notes on Migratory Birds 1 



By James Chapin 



The movements of the migratory birds of the Eastern States 

 are, with few exceptions, so well known that only the minor 

 irregularities now attract our special attention. The following 

 notes are submitted, therefore, for the benefit of local bird 

 students, or the authors of future lists of the birds of the 

 vicinity of New York. 



Uria lomvia. Brunnich's murre is noted for the irregularity 

 of its southward migrations, which ordinarily do not reach Long 

 Island, but sometimes extend as far south as North Carolina. 

 One of the most recent of these unusual migrations took place in 

 the winter of 1899-1900, when these murres are reported to have 

 reached Virginia. During that winter several were killed in the 

 lower New York Bay by Messrs. Almar and Melville Decker, 

 of Tottenville, Staten Island ; and one of them was presented to 

 the American Museum of Natural History (No. 11581). It is 

 labeled as having been collected at Giffords, Staten Island, on 

 November 18, 1899. 



During the past winter Brunnich's murres have been again 

 seen in our vicinity. On December 25, 1908, from a Staten 

 Island ferryboat, I watched a murre, presumably of this species, 

 sitting on the water just off the Battery. Mr. Charles H. Rogers 

 saw a number in the Lower Bay on the same day, as recorded in 

 Bird Lore's Christmas Census. Two days later a dead specimen 

 of U. lomvia was sent to me, in the flesh, by Mr. Charles Schopp. 

 It had been killed off Great Kills, and I was informed by Mr. 

 Schopp that others were seen the same day. On January 10, 

 1909, Mr. S. H. Chubb tells me, he saw two murres from a 

 Staten Island ferryboat, in the Upper Bay. 



1 Presented March 20, 1909. 



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