AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTION. 807 



expresses surprise that closely allied species of birds should oftentimes 

 build divers kinds of nests, overlooking the fact that even closely- 

 allied varieties of man build entirely unlike houses. 



Mr. F. H. Knowlton* records a cliff -swallow appropriating, for 

 the construction of its own nest, pellets of mud which were being 

 brought by another swallow. Also the curious fact that a number of 

 swallows were observed busily engaged in sealing up a nest in which 

 one of their comrades lay dead. Among the curious traits of birds, 

 Mr. H. B. Bailey f communicates some new ones observed in the red- 

 headed woodpecker by Mr. Agersborg, of Dakota Territory. This 

 gentleman had observed one of these birds wedging grasshoppers in a 

 large crack of an old oak-post. Nearly a hundred were stored away 

 in this manner, the bird afterward feeding at leisure on the supply. 

 This parallels the habit of the California woodpecker storing acorns 

 in holes in the tree and subsequently feeding on the fully developed 

 larvoe within the seed. 



Mr. O. P. Hay, \ in a late number of "The Auk," has an interesting 

 paper on the red-headed woodpecker as a hoarder, showing that the 

 bird makes accumulations of beechnuts, pounding them between the 

 shingles of a roof, wedging them into crevices, and storing them in 

 cavities in trees. 



The plausible suggestion made by Darwin as to the agency of 

 aquatic birds in the wide dispersal of fresh-water mollusks, was sin- 

 gularly confirmed several years after by Mr. Arthur F. Gray shooting 

 a duck which had clinging to one of its toes a fresh-water mussel. Dr. 

 J. W. Fewkes # has recently recorded the shooting of a duck in Sebec, 

 Maine, which was in like manner transporting a fresh-water mussel. 

 The same bird had been observed several days before with this curious 

 companion clinging to its foot, and had the duck been migrating at 

 the time it might have transported the mussel many hundreds of miles. 

 In this connection it would be an interesting inquiry as to how far the 

 similarity observed in north temperate and circumpolar animals is due 

 to the annual migration of birds north and south. 



Mr. William Brewster || notes some interesting features in the habits 

 of a young Kittiwake gull of the St. Lawrence. He brought home a 

 young one, its mate having died of thirst, the other one surviving 

 through the accidental discovery that the bird drank only salt-water ! 

 Both the birds obstinately refused to drink fresh water. Observations 

 on this bird by Professor A. Hyatt showed how slowly and timidly it 

 acquired the art of swimming and flying. The bird when first forced 

 to fly was thrown into the air, and, to the surprise of Professor Hyatt, 

 flew with great rapidity and precision, circling about the house and 

 through the apple-trees, and, finally, flew near him several times in 



* " Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club," vol. vi, p. 55. + Ibid., vol. iii, p. 97. 

 % "The Auk," vol. iv, p. 193. * Ibid., vol. i, p. 195. 



j] " Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. xxii, p. 364. 



