
580 NOTES ON SOME OF THE 
tionable, I omitted it from my Catalogue. As Dr. Coues re- 
marks, New England is beyond its usual range; the nearest 
point heretofore given where it regularly occurs is Hamilton, 
C. W., where, according to Mr. Charles Mellwraith, it is not 
a very rare summer resident.* Mr. Charles Linclen informs 
me that he has this year obtained the birds and a nest con- 
taining six eggs at Buffalo, N. Y. Its occasional occurrence 
in New England hence becomes more probable. 
On several occasions the so-called Collurio excubitoroides 
has been confounded by local observers with the Collurio 
Ludovicianus, and with very good reason, since they are 
undoubtedly the same. Specimens from the upper Missis- 
sippi valley, where the habitats of the two supposed species 
join, are with difficulty referred to the one rather than to 
the other. In habits and every particular, except in some 
minor differences of coloration, the two are quite alike. In 
fact no one seems to have insisted very strenuously on the 
specific distinctness of C. Ludovicianus and O. excubito- 
roides (or of C. elegans from the latter) though they have 
usually been presumed to be distinct. I have collected the 
birds in question in Western Iowa, Illinois, and in Florida ; 
according to authors those from the first two localities should 
belong to C. excubitoroides and those from the latter to C. 
Ludovicianus. The differences between them are exceedingly 
slight. Specimens of the so-called C. Ludovicianus from 
the South Atlantie states differ from others from California 
and Iowa called C. excubitoroides not more than specimens 
of the latter from New Mexico do from Iowa ones, or than 
the two supposed species do in the average, and less than 
specimens from near the assumed line of junction of their 
respective habitats. Audubon, it seems to me, very properly 
regarded them as a single species. It seems to be rare 
in the Atlantic states north of Washington, but in the 
interior reaches the Saskatchewan valley, and extends west- 
: Ward to the Pacific, and south to Mexico. In avoiding the 
* Birds of Hamilton, C. W., Proc. Essex Inst., Vol. v, p. 87. 


