BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 25 1 



I gave it as such in my Catalogue, but a reexamination of tiie evidence has led me to my present 

 opinion. I think the cases cited by Peabody p] and Linsley P] (under ^. baritus) as well as 

 that of Mr. Samuels, refer only to the common Crow Blackbird or Purple Grackle." This, no 

 doubt, was a sound conclusion, for during the thirty-five years which have elapsed since Dr. 

 Allen reached it, no fresh evidence has come to light indicating that the Boat-tailed Grackle 

 ever visits Massachusetts.] 



[Hesperiphona vespertina (W. Cooper). Evening Grosbeak. The year 1890 will be for- 

 ever memorable in the annals of New England ornithology by reason of the incursion of 

 Evening Grosbeaks which it brought. They appeared by hundreds, if not thousands, and were 

 taken or seen in every New England State except (apparently) Rhode Island. The records of 

 this extraordinary eastward migration — published chiefly in the 'Ornithologist and Oologist,' 

 'Forest and Stream,' and ' Auk '■^- are much too numerous to be cited in the present con- 

 nection. They show that the interesting birds reached us from the westward by way of south- 

 ern Canada and of New York State ; that they were noted flrst at South Sudbury, Massachusetts, 

 on January i, and last at Henniker, New Hampshire, on May i ; that they were present in the 

 greatest numbers during January, February and March ; and that most of them, apparently, 

 departed before April, no doubt returning whence they came. The flight extended quite to the 

 seacoast in eastern Massachusetts and nearly to the shores of Long Island Sound in Connecticut. 

 During the months of Januai-y, February and March, Evening Grosbeaks appeared at many 

 different places in the eastern part of this State, usually in flocks of from five or six to ten or 

 a dozen members each, although pairs and single birds, also, were noted. Naturally enough — 

 and most fortunately for the interests of our local collections — the strikingly colored birds 

 attracted much attention and many of them were shot and preserved. Although it is not 

 known that they were detected in any part of the Cambridge Region (as limited in the present 

 Memoir), they must have entered or at least passed over it, for they were found on every side 

 of it and at localities no more distant from its borders than Wellesley, West Newton, West Rox- 

 bury, Crescent Beach, Lynn, Melrose and Reading.' One of the records just mentioned has 

 for me a peculiar and somewhat melancholy personal interest. It concerns three Evening 

 Grosbeaks which were killed by a local gunner within a few rods of the railroad station at 

 Crescent Beach on February 11, 1890. I heard the shots as I was approaching the station after 

 a collecting excursion along the beach to the northward. I did not see the birds, however, 

 until the following day, when I found them in the possession of a Boston taxidermist. This 

 was as near as I have ever come to meeting with an Evening Grosbeak in life. 



The Evening Grosbeak is not known to have visited New England prior to the winter of 

 1889-1890. Since then it has been met with at Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1903; ■• 

 at Beverly, Massachusetts, on March 23, 1904 ; ' at Litchfield, Connecticut, in February, 1905.^ 



1 W. B. O. Peabody, Storer and Peabody, Reports on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massa- 

 chusetts, 1839, 285. 



2 J. H. Linsley, American Journal of Science and Arts, XLIV, 1843, 260. 



'The statement, on my authority, in Mr. Chapman's 'Handbook of Birds of Eastern North 

 America' (p. 279) to the effect that the Evening Grosbeak appeared in "Cambridge " during the "win- 

 ter of i889-'90 " relates to instances above mentioned of the occurrence of the species at Wellesley, 

 West Newton and Crescent Beach — localities which Mr. Chapman and I decided at the time to 

 include in the region to be covered by the notes that I furnished for his book. 



*J. T. Nichols, Auk, XXI, 1904, 81-82. 



*C. E.Brown, ibid., 385. 



*J. Hutchins, Bird-Lore, VII, 1905, 173-174. 



