ON A BIRD NEW TO THE BERMUDAS, WITH NOTES UPON SEV- 
ERAL SPECIES OF RARE OR ACCIDENTAL OCCURRENCE, 
Melospiza fasciata (Gmelin) Scott. Song Sparrow. 
Walter H. Merriam and myself found a dead Song Sparrow near 
Hungary Bay, Bermuda, April 18, 1881. This was after a heavy gale 
from the southwest, and the date would bring it about the close of the 
period of northward migration for this species along our coast. Al- 
though the weather was warm and the atmosphere laden with moisture 
the bird was perfectly fresh and could not have been dead long. It 
was doubtless lost at sea during the storm and carried exhausted to the 
Bermudas, where it perished from the effects of the tempest. This 
species has not heretofore been recorded from the Bermudas. 
Pyranga rubra (Linn.) Vieillot Scarlet Tanager. 
On the 18th of April, 1881, I found an adult male of this species, 
washed ashore on the south side of Bermuda, in Paget Parish. 
Pelionetta perspicillata (Linn.) Kaup. Surf Duck. 
During the middle and latter part of April, 1881, I on several occa- 
sions saw a male “ Skunk-head Scoter,” or “Surf Duck” swimming 
about in a shallow brackish-water pond in Devonshire Parish. The 
pond was bordered and encroached upon by a dense growth of the 
curious semi-aquatic mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), of which a single 
tree often covers several acres, and constitutes a miniature forest by itself. 
It was within this intricate and complex labyrinth of half-immersed 
roots and tangled branches that the duck was commonly found. Here 
he would drift about lazily but with considerable circumspection, obtain- 
ing an easy and varied sustenance from the multitudes of small “ shell 
fish” and other marine animals that gather in countless hosts about 
the roots of this remarkable tree. Where could a duck find a more in- 
viting or secure home than this secluded lagoon, hidden by a dense and 
almost impenetrable jungle of mangrove, and surrounded by a morass 
of treacherous bog ? 
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