18S7.] Goss, Additions to the Birds of Kansas. *!
Vireo caymanensis. sp. now
Sp. Char.—(J1 Coll. C. B. Cory, No. 6273.) Upper parts dull olive,
brightest on the rump and upper tail-coverts ; crown darker than the
back, showing a slight brownish tinge; underparts dull yellowish-
white, faintly tinged with olive on the sides and flanks ; upper throat
dull white ; a dull white superciliary stripe from the upper mandible ;
a stripe of slaty brown from the upper mandible passing through
and back of the eye; quills dark brown, narrowly edged with dull
green on the outer webs, most of the inner feathers showing a white
edging on the basal portion of the inner webs ; tail dull olive brown,
the feathers showing green on the edges; upper mandible dark;
lower mandible pale
; feet slaty brown.
Length, 5.40; wing, 2.75; tail, 2.25; tarsus, .75; bill, .52.
Habitat. Island of Grand Cayman, West Indies.
Several specimens of Seiurus noveboraccitsis were received
from Grand Cayman, having been taken there in August. A few
birds were also sent from Little Cayman ; they were Polioftila
ccerulea (Linn.), Dendroica dominica (Linn. J, Vireo calidris
barbatulus (Cab.), Euethcia olivacea (Gmel.), Elainea marti-
fiica? (Linn. ) , Tyrannus dominicensis (Gmel.) , and a Zeniada.
The latter appears to be somewhat different from Z. spadicca^
but a larger series is necessary to determine if the comparatively
slight differences are constant. It is of a somewhat paler brown,
and shows a decided slaty tinge on the flanks ; the metallic re-
flections on the feathers of the neck appear different in color,
being paler and less in extent. It is possible that the two birds
are not separable specifically, but in case future investigation
should prove them to be distinct I would propose the name of
Zenalda richardsoni for the Little Cayman bird.
ADDITIONS TO THE CATALOGUE OF THE BIRDS
OF KANSAS.
BY N. S. GOSS.
The following observations have been made, and notes gathered,
since the publication, May 1, 1SS6, of my 'Revised Catalogue of
the Birds of Kansas' :
o Goss, Additions to the Birds of Kansas. [January
Podilymbus podiceps ( Linn. ) . Pied-billed Grebe.—June
8, 18S6, I found these birds breeding in a pond in Meade County.
I shot a young bird about two-thirds grown and saw several others,
and caught a glimpse, in the rushes, of an old bird followed by
little chicks, not more than a day or two old.
Phalaropus tricolor ( Vieill.). Wilson's Phalarope.—June
S, 1SS6, I found three pairs of these birds breeding on marshy
ground, bordering a slough or pond of Crooked Creek, Meade
County, and I therefore enter the species as an occasional summer
resident in Western Kansas
;
quite common throughout the State
during migration. Nest on the ground, usually on hummocks, quite
deeply excavated, and lined with leaves from the old dead grasses
;
eggs, three or four—usually four
;
ground color, cream to ashy
drab, rather thickly but irregularly blotched with varying shades
of brown to black. The female is larger and brighter in color
than the male, but from limited observations of the birds lam led
to think certain writers are mistaken in reporting that the females
arrive first and do all the courting, but leave the work of nest-
making, incubation, and the rearing of the young to the males. I
have never been so fortunate as to find either of the birds upon the
nest
; but certainly, both appear equally watchful and solicitous,
circling around and croaking as one approaches their nests, or
near their young (grayish little fellows that leave the nest as soon
as hatched). The earliest arrival noticed in the State was at
Neosho Falls, April 29, 1S79. In this flock, as in all others seen
at or about the time of their arrival, the sexes appeared to be
about equally divided, and I am inclined to think further examin-
ation will prove the birds to be joint workers in the hatching and
rearing of their young. With a view to removing all doubts, I
trust all naturalists who are so fortunate as to be upon their breed-
ing grounds during the breeding season will carefully note and
report their observations.
/Egialitis nivosa (Cass.). Snowy Plover.—Summer res-
ident on the salt plains along the Cimarron River, in the Indian
Territory, the northern limits of which extend across the line
into southwestern Comanche County, Kansas. Quite common
;
arrives about the first of May ; begins laying the last of May.
Nest, a depression worked out in the sand; eggs, three, 1.20X
.90, pale olive drab, approaching a light clay color, with a green-
ish tint, rather evenly and thickly marked with irregularly-shaped
18S7. Goss, Additions to the Birds of Kansas. g
ragged-edged splashes and dots of dark or blackish brown. (See
Auk, III, 1SS6, p. 409.)
Colinus virginianus texanus (Lawr.). Texan Bob-white.
—This bird is entered in the A. O. U. 'Check-List' as "Hab.
Southern and Western Texas, north to Western Kansas." On
receipt of the 'List', I wrote to Mr. Robert Ridgway, a member
of the committee that prepared the list, to know when and where
in the western part of the State the birds had been taken. In
reply he says: k ' Colinus virginianus texanus, as a bird of
Kansas, rests on two specimens, adult females, in the National
Museum, labelled, respectively, No. 34425, Republican Fork,
May 27, 1S64, Dr. Elliott Coues, U. S. A. ; and No. 34425, same
locality, date, and collector. (See Hist, N. Am. B., Ill, p. 474.)
These specimens agree exactly with typical examples of texamis
as compared with virginianus proper." Since the early settle-
ment of the State I have known through report of military men
and hunters that Bob-whites were occasionally seen on the Cim-
arron River. I never met with them there, and had taken it for
granted that they were C. virginianus ; but as the birds were
found in Western Kansas long before our Bob-whites, in follow-
ing up the settlements, reached the central portion of the State,
I am now inclined to think further examination may prove the
western bird of the plains to be variety texanus, and that they
reached that portion of the country by following north on the old
military trails. I have written to several persons in that region
for specimens, but as yet have no reply.
Empidonax pusillus traillii (Azid.). Traill's Fly-
catcher.—Mr. George F. Brenninger, Beattie, Marshall Coun-
ty, has kindly sent me for examination a nest containing three
eggs, taken July 17, 18S6, in a thick second growth of timber,
on the bank of a small creek at Beattie, and writes that he found
in the same vicinity quite a number of nests. The earliest found,
with a full set of eggs, was June 14. In the Goss Ornithological
Collection is a female which I shot at Neosho Falls, July 26,
1S81, and I have occasionally noticed the birds during th$ sum-
mer months, and have no doubt but they will prove to be quite a
common summer resident. I congratulate Mr. Brenninger on
the find, and thank him for calling my attention to it. The nests
are usually placed in upright forks of the small limbs of trees and
bushes, from four to ten feet from the ground. A rather deejD
IO Goss, Additions to the Birds of Kansas. [January
cup-shaped nest, closely resembling in form and make-up the
nest of Dendroica cestiva. Composed chiefly of small stems or
twigs from plants, and flaxen fibrous strippings from the same,
with a few scattering blades of grass, and here and there an occa-
sional feather, and lined thickly and rather evenly with fine hair-
like stems from grasses ; eggs, three and four. Dimensions of the
three eggs sent, . 70X .55, .70X .55, .69 x .55 ; and of a set of four
eggs taken June 17, 1SS1, at Galesburg, Illinois, .72 X
.55,
.72 x
.55, .72 x .54, .70 X .54 ; color, cream white thinly
spotted and speckled with reddish brown, thickest around large
end.
Spizella monticola ochracea Brcvost. Western Tree
Sparrow.—Mr. William Brewster, in "Notes on some Birds
collected by Capt. Charles Bendire, at Fort Walla Walla, Wash-
ington Territory" (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Vol. VII, Oct. 1882,
p. 225), under the head of "species and varieties calling for
special consideration" (p. 228), gives a full description of this
form from a careful examination and comparison of the Fort
Walla Walla specimens with specimens of the typical eastern
bird, deciding that the differences in coloration and markings were
sufficient to rank it as a variety of S. ?/ionticola, and naming the
bird the Western Tree Sparrow, S. ?>w?iticola ochracea. He
gives its habitat as kW Western North America, east to Dakota,
north to Arctic Ocean ; Alaska." At Wallace, on the 14th of
October, 1SS3, I shot several Tree Sparrows, and thought at the
time that they were somewhat paler in color and different from
specimens I had taken in the eastern part of the State ; but on
comparison I reached the conclusion that they were the young
birds of the year, and gave the matter no further thought until I
noticed the bird entered in the A. O.U. 'Check-List' as occurring
in ''Western Kansas." I at once wrote to Mr. Brewster for typi-
cal specimens of both this and the eastern bird, which I received
through his friend, Mr. Arthur P. Chadbourne, of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Just before receiving the specimens, I killed
(October 25, 1S86), three of the birds in Cheyenne County (north-
west corner of the State). I now find, on comparing the speci-
mens, that all the western birds, and a female in the Goss Orni-
thological Collection, taken November 22, 187S, at Neosho Falls,
are in every respect similar in color to Mr. Chadbourne's speci-
men, labelled S. monticola ochracea, Ellis, Kansas, January,
1887.] Townsend on the Birds of Northern Alaska. I 1
1SS6. The specimens examined from Eastern Kansas are nearly
all the true S. monticola, the coloration being fully as rich and
deep as that of the eastern specimen taken in Middlesex County,
Massachusetts, December 1, 1S82. I therefore enter the Western
Tree Sparrow as a winter resident ; abundant in Middle and
Western Kansas, and not uncommon in the eastern portion of the
State. The western specimens, however, that I have examined,
were all captured in the fall or early winter, and I should be led
to think it possible upon further examination, especially of the
birds in their spring plumage, might prove the paler form to be
the immature winter dress, were it not for the fact that Mr. Brew-
ster, in making his examination, had before him not only his own
large collection, but that in the National Museum, which must
have embraced specimens taken at different seasons of the year.
Turdus ustulatus swainsonii {Cab.). Olive-backed
Thrush.
—
June 6, 1S86, I saw several of these birds in the tim-
ber skirting Crooked Creek, in the northern part of Meade Coun-
ty. They were probably migrants, but the date is so late in the
season that I think it worthy of mention.
LIST OF THE MIDSUMMER BIRDS OF THE
KOVVAK RIVER, NORTHERN ALASKA.
BY CHARLES H. TOWNSEND.
As my 'Notes on the Natural History of Northern Alaska,'
forming part of the 'Report of the Arctic Cruise of the U. S.
Revenue Steamer Corwin,' recently ordered to be published by
Congress, will probably be several months in the hands of the
Public Printer, a list of the birds I found in those high latitudes
may be acceptable to the readers of 'The Auk.'
The Kowak was explored by a party sent out from the 'Cor-
win,' in 18S5, in charge of Lieut. J. C. Cantwell, consisting
of Lieut. Cantwell, myself, two seaman, and several Eskimo
guides. We were on the river from the first of July until the
last of August, and were the first white men to reach the head-