Brewster on HolbolVs Redpoll in New E?igland. 
[April 
have overlooked some obscure record, to any portion of the 
United States, specimens taken by Cooper at Quebec, being 
apparently the most southern ones thus far reported. Some one 
has lately said that we know more about the birds of our 
remote western plains and mountains than of those which occur 
nearer home, and it is, perhaps, idle to deny that such a charge 
contains a grain of truth. At least the past decade has brought 
many surprises to the student of New England ornithology and 
it is not likely that the supply is exhausted. 
We now have an interesting development affecting New Eng- 
land Red-polls. Among extensive series of udEgiothi taken in 
this vicinity, a small proportion — usually from five to eight per 
cent — will be found to differ from the ordinary type in being very 
much larger, with stouter, less acute bills, generally darker color- 
ing, and especially darker, coarser streaking beneath. These birds, 
if I am not mistaken, are Holboll’s Red-poll (NEgiotkus linaria 
holboelli ')* . I have known them these fifteen years or more, as 
regular, though never very common associates of the Lesser 
Red-poll, during the latter’s winter incursions, a good-sized flock 
of the common species being usually pretty sure to contain a 
few of the larger kind. Previous to the present season they do 
not seem to have occurred in any considerable numbers, but 
during the past month (February, 1883), they have been actually 
abundant near Boston, and, on several occasions, have been found 
in flocks apart from the smaller species. 
I had an experience of this kind on February 19, when col- 
lecting at Revere Beach in company with Mr. H. M. Spelman. 
The day was cold and blustering and birds, as is usual at such 
times, were exceedingly active and restless. Flocks of Red-polls 
were continually passing, occasionally alighting among the seed- 
bearing weeds, or clustering for a moment oh the spire of an 
isolated cedar, the next whirling off' as suddenly as they came. 
Under such conditions it was impossible to identify all the indi- 
viduals seen, but we satisfied ourselves that most of these flocks 
were made up chiefly of the larger race, while one or two were 
positively ascertained to contain only the smaller kind. Of the 
twenty-one specimens actually taken thirteen proved to be 
holboelli. 
* In making this determination I take it for granted that authors are right in re- 
ferring the American bird to s£. holboelli of Europe. 
