A singular specimen of the Blacl{-and-white Creeper. —The Essex 

 County Collection (mounted) of the Peabody Academy of Science at 

 Salem, Mass., contains a pecular Black-and-white Creeper which Mr. Rob- 

 inson, Curator of the Academy, has kindly allowed me to examine and 

 describe- 



According to the accompanying data the bird is a male, taken at about 

 the beginning of the breeding season (Ipswich, Mass., May 15, 1883, 

 by E. C. Greenwood). It differs from the normal condition of the adult 

 male as follows : The forehead, crown, occiput, and nape are dull black, 

 with a rectangular spot of brownish white on the nape, but with no trace 

 of the usual median stripe on the top of the head, even at the roots of the 

 feathers. The opposite sides of the head are differently marked. On the 

 left side there is a distinct superciliary stripe of brownish or ochraceous- 

 ash, which begins above the anterior corner of the eye and is continued 

 backward nearly to the occiput, merging posteriorly into a tract of similar 

 color on the auriculars, but separated from it immediately behind the eye by 

 a conspicuous post-ocular spot of black. 



On the right side the black descends uninterruptedly to the auriculars, 

 and there is no apparent trace of a superciliary stripe, although the right 

 eye, like the left, is encircled by a narrow whitish ring. Both lores are 

 black, with a slight tipping of brownish on some of the feathers, and both 

 sides of the head and neck, below tlie line of the eye, are uniform brownish- 

 ochraceous, with a few obscure dusky shaft-streaks on the auriculars. 



The exposed surface of the throat, jugulum, and breast is plain brownish- 

 ash, without decided markings of any kind, save well back on the sides 

 of tne breast, where there are a few black streaks. Upon disarranging the 

 plumage, however, concealed black is everywhere revealed, each feather 

 having a sub-terminal black bar extending squarely across both webs 

 and se^parating the light brownish-ashy space at the tip from the somewhat 

 broader, pure ashy one at the bases. The back is colored and marked 

 like that of the autumnal female of Mniotilta; the flanks and cnssum 

 similarly washed with fulvous. The wings and tail offer nothing peculiar, 

 although they have rather less than the usual amount of white. 



In a more general way. this bird may be characterized as a Black-and- 

 white Creeper with the crown of a Black-poll Warbler and a throat and 

 breast which recall (although they will not actually bear comparison with) 

 those of the Connecticut Warbler in autumn. Nearly every one who has 

 seen the specimen has been inclined, at first, to consider it a hybrid, but 

 although the Mniotilta element is obvious enough, it is difficult to supply 

 the other parent. Assuming it to have been Dendrmca striata, the obhter- 

 ation of the median crown-stripe of Mniotilta is accounted for, but a cross 

 with this -or indeed with any ot\x<tx bladc-croxvned Warbler ot my 

 acquaintance, would hardly give the pecular coloration of the breast and 

 throat. Moreover, the generic characters oi Mniotilta — ft%\}ftaMy Us 

 only really important ones, viz., the peculiar shape and proportion of bill 

 and feet — are in no wise modified as would be certainly the case were the 

 bird an ofi^spring of a cross with a species of another genus. In view of 

 these considerations it is most natural to assume that it is an aberrant- 

 perhaps melanistic — example of the common Black-and-white Creeper. 

 The case rinds a fairly close parallel in that of tlie notorious Spiza town- 

 sendi, which can be scarcely maintained as a bona-fide species, while it is 

 equal'ly difficult to show successfully that it had a hybrid origin. The 

 occui^^^i^^of such strangely abnormal specimens should be a warning to 

 those who would impugn certain 'lost' species which, it has been claimed, 

 have existed only in the imagination of their describers. — William 

 Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 



Auk, I. April. 1884. p./f<i'-/fi 



