Distribution of New England Birds. - 
A Reply to Dr, Brewer. H. A. Purdie. 
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Quiscalus major. Boat-tailed Grackle. — “ Q. baritus, Bonaparte. 
Thrush Blackbird. New Haven. Of the Thrush Blackbird one speci- 
men only has been observed, by Dr. Whelpley at New Haven, and of 
course is rare in Connecticut.” (Rev. J. H. Linsley, Cat* of the Birds of 
Conn., in Am. Jour. Sci, and Arts, Vol. XLIV, 1843, p. 249.) “Acciden- 
tal. Have heard of one that was killed in Cambridge a few years since. 
Mr. E. A. Samuels tells me that a pair bred in Cambridge in 1861.” (J. A. 
Allen, Proc. Ess. Inst., IY, p. 85, 1864.) Both these and the Connecticut 
bird are cited by Dr. Coues (Proc. Ess. Inst., V, p. 285, 1868) as valid. 
But I understand that more recently the authenticity of the specimens 
taken is doubted, they being referred to the Crow Blackbird (Q. purpureus). 
As Mr. Linsley also gives Q. purpureus as common, I see no reason for 
doubting his record. Of Mr. Samuels’s birds, I have always understood 
him, and he still avers that two of them, in the flesh, were brought to him 
by Professor Jeffries Wyman, and that to his best knowledge and belief 
they were shot in the Cambridge salt marshes ; that their rarity was com- 
mented on at the time, and that they were not Q. purpureus. 
Bull. N. O.O. 2, Jan. , 1877. p. /£• f3 . 
