Occurrence of the Prothonotary Warbler {Protonotaria citi-ca) in 

 Massachusetts.— On the afternoon of May 9, 1SS6, J was rowing up the 

 Assabet River in Concord, Massachusctls.'wlien my companion, Mr. D. C. 

 French, called my attention to a small bird, which was hopping about in 

 some driftwood at the edge of the water. Getting only a glimpse at it I 

 mistook it for a Yellow Warbler and was about to take up the oars again 

 when it came out .in full view and I at once recognized an old friend which 

 I certainly never expected to see in Massachusetts, viz. : the Prothonotary 

 Warbler. It seemed perfectly at home, flitting from twig to twig, jetting 

 Its tail, and occasionally chirping sharply. Once it sang in an undertone'! 

 It \vas very tame, and as we sat watching it our boat drifted past Avithin a 

 few yards without alarming it. Finallj I shot it. It proved to be an adult 

 male in high plumage. Its skin was well covered with fat, its stomach 

 filled with msects, chiefly beetles. The weather was fine at the time, but 

 on the preceding day an easterly storm of some violence prevailed along 

 the Atlantic coast, from Cape Hatteras to New England. To this storm"! 

 doubtless owe the pleasure of adding the Prothonotary Warbler to the 

 launa of our State, for my specimen is the first that has been reported 

 from Massachusetts, although the bird has occurred once previously in 

 Maine, and once in Rhode Island.— William Brewstfr C.ambrid<rc 

 Mass. Auk. 3. July. 1886. p. ' 



Two additional Massachusetts Specimens of the Prothonotary Warbler 



{,Proto7wtaria r/Vre,,)— At the time of recording* the Prothonotary War- 

 bier taken May 9, 1886, I had no idea that I should ever shoot another in 

 Massachusetts. During the following August, however, I took two morein 

 Concord, one August 17, on the banks of the main river about a mile below 

 the town, the other August 23, on the Assabet, within fifty yards of the 

 spot where the first (May) specimen was obtained. The first of these 

 August birds was a young female, the second an adult male; both had 

 completed the summer moult and perfected the autumnal plumage. I saw 

 and fully identified each on the day before it was shot, Mr. Purdie being 

 with me on one occasion (Aug. 22) as well as examining the freshly-killed 

 specimen next day. 



Both birds were restless and rather shy, flitting from place to place, 

 frequently crossing and recrossing the narrow stream. For the most part 

 they kept well up in the trees, seeming to prefer the denser foliaged ones, 

 especially the swamp oaks (^^uercus bicolof) among the broad, dark leaves 

 of which they concealed themselves so successfully that I had the greatest 

 difficulty in getting even a glimpse at them. They seemed perfectly at 

 home in their strange surroundings, as indeed they might well be, for 

 both the Concord and Assabet Rivers, with their densely-wooded banks 

 and half-submerged thickets of black willows and button bushes, aflord 

 plenty of just such places as the Prothonotary delights in at the South and 

 West. 



Viewed in the light of this later experience the status of the Prothono- 

 tary Warbler as a Massachusetts bird presents an interesting problem. 

 The May specimen, considered apart, might be consistently treated as a 

 chance straggler from the South, especially as it occured just after a storm 

 which prevailed along our entire eastern coast; but the appearance of two 

 others, one of them a young bird, in the same locality, at the heightof the 

 return migration, seems to indicate that during i886, at least, there has 

 been a regular, if limited, flight into and from New England, and that the 

 species has actually bred either within or to the northward of this region. 

 That such a visitation is of annual recurrence is more doubtful, but it is 

 certainly not impossible, especially when we consider that the Prothono- 

 tary is a bird of peculiar habits and tastes, and that the haunts which it 

 loves are, in this region, neither numerous nor often visited by collectors. 

 —William Brewster, Cambridge, Mcis^^^^ 3^ Oot. . 1886. 



