48 
BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 
Connecticut, lie speaks of “ its record of occurrence having been as good 
as any of those just cited” ; that is, a subsequent occurrence can establish 
a prior record ! 
The same indefensible claim is made in behalf of Dendroeca ccerulea. 
This was given by Mr. Putnam as a bird of Essex County, on the supposed 
authority of Mr. Brickett of Portland. Mr. Brickett, when appealed to, 
wrote me that he had been misunderstood, that he only referred to D. 
ccerulescens. So D. ccerulea fell to the ground, and was left with absolutely 
no record. Its record is now wholly ex post facto. The fact remains in- 
disputable that there was no authentic record of its appearance in New 
England at the time I so stated. 
Having exhausted the all too insufficient limits to which I am re- 
stricted, I am compelled to omit nearly all that I have written in refer- 
ence to Micropalama himantopus. I will only state that in characterizing 
it as “ migratory. Mass.,” I should have added “ N. H.,” in which it has 
been taken twelve miles from our boundary line. Though invited to do 
so, your correspondent is unable to give any data to show that it is migra- 
tory along the entire New England coast. It has not been found in any 
part of that coast from St. Andrew’s to Kittery, or from Buzzard’s Bay to 
East Biver, and the sweeping statement of your correspondent still re- 
mains an entirely unsupported assumption. 
Here all controversy, on my part, with your correspondent ends. What- 
ever reference I may hereafter make to any facts or opinions bearing upon 
any of our New England birds, will be without any reference to a contro- 
versy that has been forced upon me, but in which I cannot do full justice 
to myseK without becoming an infliction upon your readers.* 
Burroughs’s “ Wake-Kobin.” — Hurd and Houghton have reprinted 
Mr. John Burroughs’s charming little volume “Wake-Robin,” wherein 
the wild wood-life of the birds, from Washington to the Adirondacks, is 
picturesquely sketched. Mr. Burroughs has a keen eye and a loving heart 
towards the birds, and it is encouraging to know that this volume of his 
ornithological essays finds a continued sale. The present edition differs 
from the original (although it is labelled “ revised ”) only in the addition 
of a chapter on the Bluebird, the addition of a copious index, and in the 
* By some oversight, which I can neither explain nor excuse, Dendroeca hlacTc- 
burnioe is omitted in my catalogue. It should have been given as breeding at 
least as far south as Massachusetts. The latest instance was noticed by Mr. 
Geo. 0. Welch of Lynn last summer. 
