10 JHE AU DU BON BU ia 
Probably the Ridgway sketch is misdated. Two inscriptions appe 
on it in Ridgway’s handwriting. The earliest is in pencil, like the sket 
itself, but the one in ink alone is dated (not I think in Ridgway’s han 
If any reference to 1858 once existed below the pencilled inscription, 
must have been removed when the sketch was trimmed and pasted ir 
its present mounting. 
More information about this sketch would perhaps be worth havir 
yet, as a possible breeding record of the scissor-tail east of the Mississi 
River, it should be rejected, not only for the reasons already indicated hb 
because: (1) Ridgway as a boy of eight could not correctly name most 
the common birds around Mt. Carmel (fide Ridgway in Harris, 1928); 
he sketched the scissor-tail in 1858, he must have identified the species a 
added the original inscription years later; my impression is the sket 
and original inscription are of the same vintage. 
(2) Ridgway did not list the scissor-tail in his “Ornithology of Illino: 
(1889), and (3) such a record is grossly improbable. 
Even within the established range of the scissor-tail (see Bendi 
1895; Bent, 1942), nesting birds may have been uncommon north of Mexi 
at the time of Ridgway’s boyhood. One indication of the likelihood of tl 
is that the earliest-dated juvenal scissor-tail in the collections of t 
American Museum of Natural History (John Bull, personal communic 
tion), the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences (James Bond, personal co 
munication) and the U. S. National Museum (Paul Slud, personal commu: 
cation) refers to June 30, 1883 (USNM No. 99599). Ridgway, incidental 
appears to have had to rely on a single specimen for his description of t 
juvenal plumage of Muscivora forficata in “Birds of North and Midc 
America” (1907). 
In acknowledgement, let me express my thanks to the persons a 
institutions noted above, especially to Richard Grossenheider for allowi: 
the publication of his painting, and to Paul Slud, who unearthed t 
Ridgway sketch in the archives of the Smithsonian and called it to n 
attention. Instructive comments and comiseration were furnished by Euge 
Eisenmann, Kenneth C. Parkes and Alan R. Phillips. 
‘BIRD WATCHES BIRD’ 
(Written as a salute to Mrs. C. J. Bird) 
Bird watchers are many— 
But who ever heard 
Of a bird-watching person 
Who’s also a Bird? 
Someone dedicated 
To gentle bluebirds 
Whose song is diminishing, 
Less and less heard. 
‘To check on their welfare 
And be their ally, 
Hoping one more rare species 
Will not fade and die. 
—Dan Hoover, Hillsboro 
