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“During one of our Buffalo hunts, on the 26th of July, 1843... we heard the notes of this species... and my friends Harris and John G. Bell immediately went in search of the birds...After a while, however, two were shot on the wing... and proved to be an ad and female” (From John James Audubon's diary [Fort Union, North Dakota]).
These specimens made it to the Academy of Natural Sciences via Edward Harris. Cassin separated these specimens from the similar Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida). He named it in honor of his friend, Thomas M. Brewer, a Bostonian originally educated as a physician. Brewer (1814–1880) was a prominent ornithologist of the mid-1800s, noted particularly for his contributions to the study of birds’ eggs.
Brewer's Sparrow was formally described in the 1856 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Page 40.
One of these birds, the adult male, (the type specimen) is part of the ornithological collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA
