536 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Britain, occasionally straggling down the Atlantic coast to Quebec, Bruns- 

 wick, Bermuda, Louisiana and Cuba. The Greenland Wheatear in New 

 York has only four records, all of which have appeared in print as follows :- 

 Long Island, Lawrence collection (Lawrence, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. Y., 

 vol. 8, 1866, page 282); Junius, Seneca county, September 9, 1872 (Baird, 

 Brewer and Ridgway, " Birds of North America," p. 501); Long Island, 

 about i'863,' female, adult, collection D. G. Elliot, in the American 

 Museum Natural History (Allen, Auk, 3:490); Jamaica, 1885, collection 

 of Long Island Historical Society (Dutcher, Auk, 10:277). 



The western New York specimen collected by Mr Hampton is now 

 in the collection of Hobart College. The letter written to Mr Hampton 

 by Professor Baird in regard to the specimen will be interesting to New 

 York ornithologists. 



Washington, November 7, 1873 

 C._ J. Hampton 



Junius, N. Y. 

 Dear sir: 



On looking over some old letters I find yotars of February 15 in reference to the 

 occurrence of the Stone chat in New York and as it is not indorsed as responded to I fear 

 I have neglected to answer it. I now write to say that you are entirely correct in your 

 supposition and that the occurrence of this species in the interior of New York is a fact 

 of extreme interest and one which I have introduced in my forthcoming work on the Birds 

 of North America. 



Very truly yours 



Spencer F. Baird 



This Wheatear is one of the most interesting of the land birds of 

 America for the reason that it crosses the North Atlantic every spring 

 to nest on the bleak shores of Labrador and Greenland, and returns again 

 in the fall to spend the winter in northwestern Africa, evidently being- the 

 only small species of land bird which still follows the ancient line of 

 migration ,as it was evidently marked out before the glacial epoch and the 

 subsidence of the north Atlantic connection between Europe and America. 



