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The Present Status of the Meadowlark ( Sturnella magna) near Portland, 
Maine. — In 1882, in his ‘Catalogue of Birds Found in the Vicinity of Port- 
land, Maine,’ Mr. Nathan Clifford Brown stated that this bird was a rare 
summer resident, oftenest seen in migrations. The extreme dates then 
given were April 22 and Nov. 3. 
To-day the conditions are decidedly different, and while the increase of 
which I shall speak seems to have been somewhat general in the southwest 
quarter of the State, I shall confine my remarks strictly to the section em- 
braced in Mr. Brown’s paper of 1882, viz., the vicinity of Portland. I had 
been collecting several seasons in fields in which the bird is now regularly 
seen in some numbers without meeting a specimen until 1891, when I found 
and collected a lone specimen at Westbrook. In August of the same year, 
in fields I had regularly visited in the adjoining town of Gorham, two small 
flocks, one of five, and one of eight birds, were seen. From that time to the 
present, May, 1909, there has been a slow but positive increase and dis- 
persal of the birds through the section. They are not only rather plentiful 
in certain Westbrook and Gorham fields, but are to be found in several 
places in the very outskirts of the city of Portland, and also in Falmouth 
and Scarborough. 
The earliest date on which I have noted the bird’s occurrence in spring 
is March 27. They have frequently shown a tendency to remain late in 
fall, having been recorded in November several years, in December twice, 
and in January once, in Westbrook. The winter just passed, 1908-09, 
a small flock actually wintered on the marshes back of Pine Point Beach in 
Scarborough, where they were watched with great interest by Mr. Walker, 
agent of the Pine Point R. R. station. — Arthur H. Norton, Portland, 
Maine. 
Aok 26 , Jmly-109* 3 07 .%, 
