ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
91 
leave before the approach of winter. Those who visit us in the 
winter are of a very different race, come from far beyond our limits, 
and do not remain with ns after the approach of spring. More than 
this, these winter visits are not confined to Southern New England. 
In some seasons, and under certain conditions, Robins are more 
numerous in some portions of Northern New England, in mid- 
winter, where food is abundant, than I have ever found them in the 
southern portions. So far as my note on the Robin went, it w^as at 
least accurate, but the supplement of “ H. A. P.” is both inexact 
and calculated to mislead. 
“ H. A. P.” asks if certain species, five in number, and named by 
him, are not shown by the records as birds to be retained. Having 
answered these questions to the best of my ability, in advance, 
and in the negative, I can only repeat that all the records we have 
in reference to them are unreliable, and that, in my judgment, these 
names should remain on the list of those requiring more evidence. 
One of them, Nettion crecca^ will probably prove to be of occasional 
occurrence, but this I do not deem at all probable of the other four. 
If “ H. A. P.” can answer his own question, he should do so ; if not, 
it is irrelevant. 
“ H. A. P.” wanders from the path of legitimate criticism to accuse 
me of having withheld credit due to certain other and recent 
authorities, and in so doing ceases to be critical and becomes per- 
sonal. I will only here remark, that his insinuations are both 
gratuitous and unjust. No one, other than myself, can know the 
extent or the limits of my knowledge, and no one has any right to 
assume how much of it is solely due to information derived from 
others. The limit to which I was restricted prevented my giving 
any extent of data, and where I depended upon authorities already 
made public, I was not at liberty so unnecessarily to swell my arti- 
cle as to repeat them. In every instance where there was any real 
occasion to do so, I have given due credit, so far as my limits per- 
mitted. And what makes this censure seem the more inconsistent 
and uncalled for is that, in his own paper, in which we find such an 
amount of sweeping generalizations, no credit whatever is given to 
any one else as having aided him in forming his conclusions. He 
has been either inconceivably fortunate in acquiring knowledge 
under difficulties, or he, too, has withheld the credit due to others 
for the data upon which he bases the positive dogmas he gives out 
in a manner quite ex cathedrd. 
