﻿FIELD AND FOREST. I9I 



Remarks on Birds of the District of Columbia. 



By Drs. E. Coues and D. W. Prentiss. 



Our earliest experiences in ornithology resulted in a List of the Birds 

 of the District of Columbia which was published in 1861, in the An- 

 nual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. We may now be per- 

 mitted to refer to that production with some little pride, as one which 

 has stood the test of time better than boys' work generally does. It 

 was, we believe, the first attempt at a formal enumeration of the birds 

 of the National Capital, and it has remained unique up to the present 

 time, when we cordially welcome the appearance of Mr. P. L. Jouy's 

 Catalogue, with its important additions to the list of species then 

 known to us. As Mr. Jouy's list is not annotated, it occurs to us that 

 some remarks upon points of difference between the two papers may 

 be desirable. 



In 1861, we gave 226 species and indicated 15 others as "proba- 

 bly" or "undoubtedly" occurring. Mr. Jouy subtracts one species 

 namely, Parus citric apilhis, from our list, and adds 15 species, namely, 



* Geothlypis Philadelphia, Vireo novelwracensis, Passer domesticus, 



* Loxia americana, *Z. lencoptera, Quiscalus ii <zneus" Tyrannus ver- 

 ticalis, Strix flammed, *s£gialitis semipalmata, Gallimila galeata, 

 Spatula clypeata, Mareca penelope, Branta bernicla, * Sterna forsteri, 

 Oceanites oceanica; of which 15, only 5, namely, those here marked 

 with the asterisk, were indicated by us as among the " probabilities." 

 The total is thus raised to 240. 



We have our doubts of the propriety of erasing Parus atricapillus 

 from the list. Robert Ridgway professes to distinguish P. carolinen- 

 sis specifically from it and he tells us, as we presume he did Mr. Jouy, 

 that all the Tits from this locality are carolinensis. But aside from 

 the question of specific distinction, it seems that the Tits from 

 Baltimore are acknowledged to be atricapillus, and it is not likely 

 that forty miles divides the two in such complete way. We think 

 after all, that the two boys may have been right in stating, as they 

 did with evident hesitation, that P. carolinensis is the ordinary sum- 

 mer Tit, and that specimens not distinguishable from ordinary atrica- 

 pillus occur in winter. 



There are, however, three species in our list which may be fairly 

 challenged. One of these is the Milvulus. Mr. C. Drexler, our in- 



