

RARER BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 513 
are added to the list then given, four of which are entirely 
new to the fauna of the State, and the others have not before 
been fully established as occurring within it, though supposed 
to from their known general distribution. Two, the Barn 
Owl (Strix pratincola) and Varied Thrush ( Turdus nevius), 
have only been previously given in Dr. Coues’ Addenda to 
his “List of the Birds of New England.” * 
The latter occurs only as a straggler from the far interior 
and western portions of the continent. Another now added, 
the Baird’s Finch (Centronyx Bairdii), discovered by Mr. 
C. J. Maynard at Ipswich (see notes beyond for farther 
particulars), is another similar example equally remarkable, 
it having been previously known only from near the mouth 
of the -Yellowstone River. A few errors in that Catalogue 
are also now corrected, with the design of making that and 
the present paper a fair exposition of the ornithological 
fauna of the State, so far as it is at present known. Three 
Species there included are now stricken. out. Numerous 
unrecorded instances of the capture of rare specimens within 
the State are also chronicled, as also the breeding of a few 
not before positively known to breed here. There are re- 
marks also on a few species, for obvious reasons, that are not 
to be regarded as among the rarer species of the State. 
The whole number of species of birds now known to 
occur in Massachusetts is three hundred. 
Gerratcon. Falco sacer Forster. (F. candicans et Is- 
landicus Auct.) A specimen in the speckled plumage was 
taken near Providence, R. I., by Mr. Newton Dexter, during 
the winter of 1864 and 1865. Its occurrence so far south 
appears to be wholly accidental. : 
The suspicion many authors have had that the F. candi- 
cans and F. Islandicus were but birds of the same species 1n 
different states of plumage, my own examination of speci- 
panne ding» of the Essex Institute, Vol. v, P. 312. 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. III. 65 
ior. - 

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