Lettersj Announcements, 
487 
XXXIX.— Letters, Announcements, ^c. 
We have received the following letters^ addressed to the 
Editors of ^ The Ibis : ^— 
233 Beacon Street, Boston. 
July 11,1878. 
Sirs,— It is some time since I wrote to yon concerning 
the explorations in the Rio-Grande region of South-western 
Texas which have been kept up with considerable activity by 
my young friend Dr. James C. Merrill, of the U.S. Army. 
I have therefore all the more to communicate. 
Last spring Dr. Merrill found a Hawk^s nest on the top 
of a low yucca-tree not five feet from the ground. He shot 
the parent, but it escaped, though desperately wounded, to 
where it could not be traced. From the size and general 
appearance of the eggs and the position of the nest, so cha¬ 
racteristic of HypotriorcMs femoralls, I inferred it might be 
this species; but Dr. Merrill thought the bird, as he saw it, 
was something different, perhaps Falco mexicanus. But the 
present spring more nests have been taken, the parents 
secured, and my conjectures have been verified. We are thus 
assured that this species breeds within our limits, where before 
it has only been once taken as a chance visitor. 
A Vireo, shot by Dr. Merrill last fall, and sent to Dr. 
Cones for identification, but which he failed to recognize as 
other than one of our common species, has been identified by 
Mr. Ridgway as a genuine Vireo flavoviridis, an entirely new •/* 
species to our fauna, although included by Baird in the 
Smithsonian Catalogue as among the possibilities. 
A Sturnella, obtained about the same time, Mr. Ridgway 
decides to be a true S. mexicana, also new to our fauna. "-f" 
On the 10th of May last Dr. Merrill wrote me the follow¬ 
ing interesting note about a Hawk, which now proves also 
to be a new bird to our fauna:—On the 2nd (of May) I 
found two large Hawks^ nests, also placed in yuccas, each 
containing one egg measuring 2*35 by 1*91 and 2*35 by 
1*85. This is the Hawk spoken of by Mr. Sennett in his 
list as Archihuteo ferrugineus ; but I very much doubt this 
