﻿192 FIELD AND FOREST. 



formant, may have seen a Milvulus, or what he thought was a Milvulus, 

 but we are not sure about it. He once colored the throat of a Den- 

 drceca coronata yellow, and tried to pass it off for a D. auduboni shot 

 here. Another is Meleagris gallopavo. It may have been proper to 

 introduce the bird in 1861,'but we doubt that a live wild Turkey has 

 been in the District or immediate vicinity for several years, though 

 the birds are constantly brought from surrounding country to the city 

 for sale. The third is Podiceps cristatus, which was introduced, as it 

 proves, without satisfactory authority, our understanding of that spe- 

 cies having been insufficient. 



There are on the other hand some species included in neither list, 

 which "certainly" do occur, though they have not yet been detected. 

 Such are Dendrceca ccerulea, Vireo philadelphicus, Cistothorus stellaris, 

 Macrorhamphus griseus, and others we could name. But Mr. 

 Jouy has wisely refrained from introducing these, or any such, 

 and we trust there never will be a bird added to the list hypothet- 

 ically, or upon considerations of its known general distribution ; the 

 great beauty of the list as it stands being its reliability to an unusual 

 degree, especially considering how extensive it is. We suppose that 

 not over twenty or thirty more species will ever be legitimately added. 

 ' By a singular oversight, Vireo noveboracensis, though a very com- 

 mon bird with which we were perfectly familiar, was omitted from our 

 list, and Mr. Jouy, by a curious coincidence, only remembered it just 

 in time to add it to his. 



Quiscalus " ceneus," which Mr. Jouy allows, was not described as a 

 species until after our list appeared. We should not admit it, even 

 now. There are plenty of these bronzy grackles in the Smithsonian 

 grounds, but we don't like the way they have of mixing with ordinary 

 purpureus. 



Passe}" domesticus, the nuisance, was introduced some years after 

 our list appeared, and now these rowdy little gamins squeak and fight 

 all through the city, to our great disgust. The introduction of these 

 exotics clutters up ornithology in a way that a student of geograph- 

 ical distribution may deplore, and interferes decidedly with the "bal- 

 ance of power ' ' among the native species. Whatever may be said 

 to the contrary notwithstanding, these sparrows do molest, harass, 

 drive off, and otherwise maltreat and forcibly eject and attempt 

 to destroy various kinds of native birds, which are thereby deprived 



