116 Contributions from the Charleston Museum. 



and many remained until the middle of March, 1897. Between 

 these dates, many of the birds taken seemed to be in a state of 

 perpetual moult. These birds were feeding upon the seed of 

 the sweet gum (Liquidamber styraciflua) , and short-leaf pine 

 (Pinus echimata) . Audubon says: 1 



In December 1833, I shot several near Charleston in South Carolina. Those 

 which I saw while in South Carolina, in company with my esteemed friend John 

 Bachman, fed entirely on the seeds of the sweet gum, each bird hanging to a bur 

 for awhile, and passing from one to another with great celerity. 



That this species is very rare near the coast, or else erratic in 

 its movements, is shown by the fact that during the past twenty- 

 five years I have only seen it in the numbers mentioned above. 2 



The Pine Siskin breeds in the mountains of North Carolina, 

 and northward into British America, also in the Rocky Mountains 

 and the Sierra Nevadas. 



200. Pooecetes gramineus (Gmel.). Vesper Sparrow. 



The Vesper Sparrow is a winter visitant, exceedingly abun- 

 dant from the middle of October until the middle of March, in 

 old fields where there is a growth of grass or weeds. It also 

 commonly inhabits cotton and corn fields, but is rarely, if ever, 

 found in the interior of forests. While in many respects essen- 

 tially a field species, it commonly resorts > to trees along the 

 margins of fields during the morning and afternoon. 



My earliest autumn record is October 9, 1895, and my latest 

 spring record April 20, 1907. I have never detected many of 

 these birds on any of the coast islands from Charleston to Bull's 

 Bay, the character of the soil not being adapted to their wants. 



Mr. W. B. Porcher secured a beautiful albino of this bird on 

 December 14, 1900. 



The. Vesper Sparrow breeds from Virginia to Prince Edward 

 Island. 



201. Passerculus princeps Mayn. Ipswich Sparrow. 



This interesting species was discovered by Mr. C. J. Maynard 

 at Ipswich, Massachusetts, on December 4, 1868, and was for 



1 Birds of America, III, 125-126. 



2 The following additional records have been made for this species: January 18, 1908, 

 by Mr. Arthur T. Wayne; February 28, 1909, by Mr. Francis M. Weston, Jr.; April 18 

 and 19, 1909, a flock of eight or ten observed by Mr. Herbert R. Sass, in his garden in 

 Charleston, and recorded in the Bulletin of the Charleston Museum, V, 1909, 37. In the 

 vicinity of Camden, Mr. Nathan C. Brown (Auk, XXVI, 1909, 432) found this species 

 abundant from December 12, 1908, to January 4, 1909, when he went to Aiken and ob- 

 served it in decreasing numbers until he left late in February, when it. was uncommon. — 

 Ed. 



