Comparative Zoology, and he also failed to place it, I became 
convinced that I had a new species. By his advice, I forbore 
to describe it as such, until I had sent it to Prof. S. F. Baird, 
at Washington. Rather to my disappointment he returned 
it with a letter saying that he had concluded that it was 
undoubtedly Baird’s Sparrow, (. Emberiza bairdis Audubon.) 
The Smithsonian Institute possessed the only specimen of this 
(then very rare) bird in existence. This was one of the original 
lot collected by Audubon on the banks of the Yellowstone 
River, July 26, 1843, and by him given to Prof. Baird. 
Although I was at heart scarcely satisfied with this 
decision, I could do no better than defer to the opinion of so 
eminent an ornithologist, and so printed an account of its 
capture, calling it Baird’s Sparrow, in the first edition of my 
Naturalist's Guide, published in 1870, p. 113. It is, however, 
rather significant that I should have given the following 
opinion as a conclusion to that article. “I think it more 
probable that the birds which occur at Ipswich are winter 
visitors from the north, than that they are stragglers from 
so great a distance as Nebraska” p. 117. 
Although I, and others, searched the Ipswich dunes 
diligently during the next two years for more examples of 
this bird, I did not find another until October 14, 1871, when 
I took one more, and another the next day, October 15. Both 
of these were females. 
These specimens confirmed my belief that I had obtained 
a new species, and I sent them to Prof. Baird, begging him to 
compare them with his sparrow. This he did and wrote 
that he thought I was right in my opinion that the birds were 
new, but added that he would like to have me come to Washing¬ 
ton and make the comparison myself. This I did in returning 
from a trip to Florida the following spring. As a result I 
described the species as Passer cuius princeps in The American 
Naturalist of October 1872, p. 637. 
Sometime in 1873 Mr. Harold Herrick sent to me for 
identification two Ipswich Sparrows, which had been collected 
on Long Island, New York. Then a few other specimens 
continued to be taken at Ipswich, but it was not until April 4, 
1874, that I saw the bird in full spring dress. Then I shot a 
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