Audubon, once a Cincinnati resident, is revered for his paintings of America birds, but some of his writings about them have lost their authority. His painting of the common greenshank may be admired, but his discovery is not now recognized by the authorities. Audubon reported having collected three of them during a visit to southern Florida in 1832, but for years the experts have discounted this report, saying none of those specimens exists. In fact, there is one all-but-forgotten common greenshank from Audubon in the Smithsonian Museum (#USNM A1975) with the appropriate date and locality; this record is the earliest for North America by many years. Another recently-recognized Florida greenshank specimen from 1882 is probably older than any Alaska example, and has been accepted by the FL records committee. As for the crested grebe, Audubon was likely led astray, probably by migrating red-necked grebes and the extravagant reports of explorers in the "fur country" in the north; his statements about how common the crested grebe was in North America are extravagant, but there is at least one neglected but undeniable North American specimen not recognized by museum curators for unknown reasons. There may well be some other old finds that have been scorned or overlooked by today's experts; one is a strange occurrence of a pair of black-headed siskins that Audubon illustrates accurately and describes thus: "While residing in Henderson, on the Ohio [in KY] I, one cold morning in December, observed five males of this species on the heads of some sunflowers in my garden, and after watching them for a little time, shot two of them." Audubon illustrated a male, but his specimens are not known to persist. Still, a pair of museum specimens of this species from North America do exist, collected in Colorado in 1877! All these surprises about new and unknown N. American species come from routine investigations of museum holdings, and there are probably a lot more out there. Who knows, though: birders with cameras may add more species to the N. Am. list even to this day, for birds both living and dead... Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]