﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 43 



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The central mountain ranges and plateaus ; straggling 

 sparingly westward in winter. Subspecies littoralis, 

 Baird : The coast ranges, straggling sparingly east- 

 ward in winter. 



3. L. atrata, Ridgway. — Rocky mountains of Colorado, in May, (not 



yet known from anywhere else.) [Possibly, but not 

 probably, a melanism of L. tephrocotis.~\ 



4. L. australis, (Allen.) — -Rocky Mountains of Colorado, (Spring, 



Summer and Autumn,) and southward, (Southern 

 limit unknown.) 

 I am aware that this view is not in accordance with that of Mr. Allen, 

 who has even gone so far as to state his suspicion that " some of 

 the differences whereon certain species of Leucosticte have been 

 founded may be only individual variations," — the remark "having 

 reference to a series of mounted specimens in the Museum of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, collected at Central City, Colorado, by 

 Mr. F. E. Everett." These were evidently, judging from Mr. Allen's 

 descriptions, (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoology, III, July, 1872, p. 163,) 

 specimens of L. australis and L. tephrocotis littoralis, and so I stated 

 in a foot-note to the quotation of his remarks, (Bull. Geol. Survey 

 Ter. No, 2, p. 55. ) It seems to have surprised Mr. Allen, however, 

 that I should have thus "without having seen them, assign[s] them, 

 with great positiveness, to his [my] different species and varieties of 

 Leucosticte." This rashness, however, was prompted merely by the 

 unmistakable characters given by Mr. Allen, which enabled me to thus 

 identify, " with great positiveness," two very distinct species, in the 

 specimens which he considered to represent individual phases in a 

 single form. 



Robert Ridgway. 



Field Notes in New England. 



The intense heat of July made its mark very plainly in the dimin- 

 ished quantity and increased temperature of the water in the moun- 

 tain springs. 



Ascending Mt. Lalayette by the old path, July, 13th we found 

 many springs dry, and in the two or three remaining, the water with 



