Page:Auk Volume 13-1896.djvu/123

 Notes on Long Island Birds.—Melospiza lincolni.—In the Parkville woods along the edge of a thicket, a small, active sparrow was seen on the morning of Sept. 28, 1895. A recent moderate fall of temperature made the morning an animated scene of bird-migration, and this bird would hardly have attracted attention among many other small birds had •it not been for his alert and ill-at-ease manner. This fact alone led me to think him not a Song nor a Savanna Sparrow, either of which he might readily have been mistaken for. He made no sound by means of which aid could be gained in his identification, but stood on the horizontal limb of a small tree, with jerking tail and erected occipital feathers, as though resenting the gaze of an intruder. It proved a Lincoln's Sparrow. The specimen is an adult female.

Vireo gilvus.—On the morning of Sept. 16, 1S95, while on the Boule- vard just beyond Prospect Park, Brooklyn, I was attracted by a sustained melodious warble, which for the moment I was unable to place, but which I afterward remembered having been formerly fairly familiar with in New Jersey as the supposed song of the Warbling Vireo. I had never verified this supposition as it had always been heard in the shade trees of village streets. In this case the bird was in one of the outer of the four rows of shade trees which extent! the length of the Boulevard. At my approach it flew into one of a cross row of maple trees, about forty yards from that in which it had first been heard, where it was secured. It proved to be an adult male Warbling Vireo — a bird which on Long Island I had often searched and listened for in vain For some reason. this bird on Long Island is either rare or often overlooked. The latter seems the less likely in that its song is very characteristic, as well as being one of the sweetest, and most apt to attract attention of all our singing birds. Its song is" a refrain of trilled notes, varying up-hill and down in harmonious modulations, with only the merest pause between each effort of, it must be, twenty-five or thirty notes.

Helminthophila peregrina.—On the same morning on which the Lincoln's Sparrow was obtained (Sept. 2S, 1S95), and but a few minutes later, a specimen quite as rare was captured; namely, the Tennessee Warbler. This bird was in the woods and when first seen was on the ground, from whence it flew into the low pendant branches of a tree, about four feet from the ground. No bird-note that I could identify as his was heard. The specimen is an adult male.

Dendroica tigrina.—At Canaisee Village, Sept. 12, 1894, a Warbler of rather obscure markings was taken in the edge of a little grove of trees which stands back but a few yards from the salt-grass meadows. This and a male Black-throated Blue Warbler were seen in the lower branches of a thickly foliaged tree overhanging a heavy undergrowth of blackberry brambles and tall weeds. It was rather carelessly labeled as a Magnolia Warbler, which, of course, it does not in the least resemble. It was rediscovered and my diagnosis of it as the Cape May Warbler was kindly verified by Mr. Chapman. The specimen is an adult female.