398 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



Phillips's Woodpecker. Picus phillipsii Aud. — Nuttall says (The Land 

 Birds, ed. 2, 1840, 686) that the type specimen of Phillips's Woodpecker "was 

 killed in the vicinity of Cambridge, Massachusetts," but whether or not within 

 the limits of the region covered by the present Memoir we are, and probably 

 always shall be, left in doubt. Not that the matter is of more than passing 

 interest, for ornithologists have long since concluded that the bird in question 

 was merely a young Hairy Woodpecker. Whether it belonged to the typical 

 form of that species or to the large northern form, now called leucomelas, they 

 are not, however, agreed. I am decidedly of the opinion that all the Hairy 

 Woodpeckers which breed in New England (even in northern Maine, New 

 Hampshire and Vermont) should be referred to villosus. The type of Picus 

 phillipsii must have been reared near the place where it was taken, for it was 

 certainly a young bird in first or natal plumage, despite the fact that both 

 Audubon and Nuttall believed it to be an ' adult male.' 



Louisiana Water-Thrush. Seiurus motacilla (Vieill.).— Mr. Reginald 

 Heber Howe, Jr., has reported (Auk, XIX, 1902, 292) that "on May 21, 1902, 

 Messrs. Francis G. and Maurice C. Blake of Brookline observed" a Louisiana 

 Water-Thrush "on the north bank of the Charles River, above Waltham. The 

 bird was watched from within a few feet and there is no doubt of its correct 

 identification." I learn from Mr. Howe that it was met with immediately above 

 the point where Stony Brook enters Charles River and hence just outside one of 

 the definite boundaries of the Cambridge Region. For this reason I did not 

 discuss nor even mention the matter in what might otherwise have been its 

 appropriate place, viz., in the main text of the present Memoir. I will now sayj 

 however, that I cannot share Mr. Howe's confidence in the accuracy of this 

 record. I distrust it (i) because it rests on a sight identification by observers 

 who, I am told, had had no previous experience with the Louisiana Water- 

 Thrush in life; (2) because this species is habitually so shy as seldom, if ever, 

 to permit near and open approach (the Blakes were on the river in a canoe when 

 they noted the bird); and (3) because on the date when the observation was 

 made the Northern Water-Thrush (which may often be " watched from within a 

 few feet ") is of common occurrence along the banks of most of our Massachu- 

 setts rivers. 



No such doubts can attach, L think, to the record by Mr. Bradford Torrey 

 (Auk, XIX, 1902, 292) of a Louisiana Water-Thrush seen by him and also by 

 Mr. C. J. Maynard in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1902. The early date (April 

 1 3) on which this bird appeared would alone furnish practically conclusive evi- 

 dence that it must have been a Louisiana, and not a Northern, Water-Thrush. 

 Wellesley, however, is not included in the Cambridge Region. 



