Merriam on a Bird new to Northern America. 2 I 3 



ON A BIRD NEW TO NORTHERN NORTH 

 AMERICA. 



BY C. HART MERRIAM, M. D. 



Among some birds sent me by Mr. Napoleon A. Comeau from 

 Godbout, Province of Quebec, Canada, is a specimen of the 

 Yellow-green Vireo ( Vireo Jlaviviridis Cassin) . Mr. Comeau 

 writes me that he found it, dead, near his home at Godbout, May 

 ^3' 1S83. The specimen agrees well with Baird, Brewer and 

 Ridgway's description of this species except in size, it being con- 

 siderably smaller than the measurements there given. Its meas- 

 urements are : wing, 73 mm. (2.83 in.) ; tail. 48 mm. (1.88 in.) ; 

 bill, 10 mm. (.40 in.) ; while Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, in 

 their diagnosis (Hist. N. Am. Birds, I, p. 359), give: wing, 

 3.15 in. ; tail, 2.55 in.; and bill, .41 in. The wing formula in 

 the Godbout specimen is as follows : 2d and 3d primaries sub- 

 equal ; 4th shorter; ist between 4th and 5th, but much nearer 

 4th (2 = 3, 4, I, 5). The sides of the breast, axillars, and par- 

 ticularly the crissum, are of a bright sulphur yellow, much more 

 brilliant than in the brightest fall specimens of V. olivaceus. 



Mr. Robert Ridgvv'ay of the Smithsonian Institution, to whom 

 I submitted the specimen, writes as follows concerning it: " The 

 Vireo sent for examination seems to be true V. Jlaviviridis but 

 is unusually small for that species, the smallest example in our 

 series of fourteen skins having the wing 2.90 inches long, the 

 average being a little more than 3 inches." 



The northernmost record of V. Jlaviviridis that I have been 

 able to find is that of a specimen procured at Fort Brown, Texas, 

 August 23, 1877, by Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A. (Proc. U. 

 S. Nat. Mus., Vol. I, p. 125, 1878). 



The route by which this little waif reached the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence is open to conjecture. My opinion is that it was car- 

 ried to sea in a storm, and, chancing to fall in with a northward 

 bound vessel, remained about the rigging till within sight of land ; 

 and were the vessel bound for Qiiebec the first land neared would 

 probably have been Point de Monts, only nine miles from the 

 spot where it was picked up, emaciated and dead. 



