1879.] ATT [Brewer. 
take a place among the birds not only of New England, but of 
Massachusetts also, must now yield to a fine example in the collec- 
tion of Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs of Boston. It is a male 
specimen ; was shot on Cape Cod, and brought to the Boston market 
Sept. 17, 1878, where my friends purchased it. Though the particu- 
lars of the exact time, place, and parties by whom it was procured 
are not obtainable, I have no reason to doubt that it was actually 
taken within our State limits. Of the two previous instances cited, 
in one case there was no record preserved, and in the other the 
allered example proved to be an immature S. bassana. 
Assuming as entitled to a place in the catalogue of the birds of 
New England all the forms given Feb. 6, 1878, the five } additional 
species here named would swell our list to three hundred and sixty- 
one. But the same reasons for not including Crythagra butyracea and 
Carduelis elegans in our list should lead us to exclude 7'haumatias 
Linnaei. And it is very doubtful how far we are justifiable in retain- 
ing in the list quite a number of stragglers, whose presence, in a single 
instance, may have been entirely fortuitous, and not liable to occur a 
second time. Such unlooked-for visits as those of the Louisiana. 
Tanager, in mid-winter, of the Sooty Tern and the Booby Gannet are 
events as full of interest as they are inexplicable. Their record 
should be carefully preserved, and, in the future, we may have the 
means to better understand what at present puzzles and confounds us. 
» That birds cited as exclusively “inter-tropical’’ during their breed- 
ing season, and ‘‘ oceanic ” at other times, should be found in October 
on our inland lakes is hardly more surprising than that another bird 
mentioned as confined to the *‘ South Atlantic States,” and not known 
to occur except as a strageler from North Carolina to New England, 
should be found breeding in numbers in twoof our most northern 
States. 
1 Notre. — Just as this paper was about to be printed, Prof. Baird writes me that 
an immature specimen of the Rhynchops nigra (Black Skimmer) was shot by 
Mr. John F. Carlton, of Wood’s Holl, near that place, and Mr. George A. Board- 
man, of St. Stephen, N. B., informs me that several examples have been taken off 
the coast of Maine the present season. This adds another species, making the 
fifth addition to the New England list, and the present number three hundred and 
sixty. 
