General Notes. 187 



seen by Mr. Saunders the color of the mantle of this species is darker than 

 in the darkest L. canus. From the latter its general appearance is so dif- 

 ferent that they are distinguishable at a glance. 



Among the synonyms of La/rus franklini are given cucullatus of Bruch, 

 Lawrence, and Coues, kittlitzii and schim-peri, both of Bruch. On the Pa- 

 cific coast this species goes down as far as Chili, fully adult examples 

 having been taken as far south as Santiago. 



Ehodostethia rosea, the rarest of this family, is known by some thirteen 

 examples. With two, perhaps three, exceptions these have all been taken 

 in Arctic America. The one said to have been taken in England rests on 

 very questionable authority. Sabine's Gull, on the Pacific coast, on the 

 authority of Professor Steere of the University of Michigan, has been 

 taken on Macebi Island, on the coast of Peru, in latitude 8° south. The 

 example Avas in the adult plumage. 



Mr. Saunders's paper evinces a remarkable success in disentangling the 

 complicated web of European Gulls ; but to explain the great service thus 

 rendered would take too much space, and would not interest most of the 

 readers of the Bulletin. This is especially true of the syuonymy of leucop- 

 terus, argentatus, cachinnans, — which at last takes its place as a good 

 species, a synonym not of argentatus, but of leucoplmus and michahellesii, — 

 affinis, ridibundus, and icthyaetus. A more complicated tangle than these 

 six species presented, thanks to such splitters as Boie, Brehm, Bruch, and 

 Bonaparte, it would be hard to imagine, and the service rendered by Mr. 

 Saunders cannot fail to be appreciated by all who have experienced its 

 need. — T. M. B. 



General #!trte& 



The Nesting of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Empidonax fla- 

 rxr, ntris). — On Monday, June 10, 1878, while collecting in company with 

 Mr. R. F. Pearsall on the island of Grand Menan, I flushed a Yellow- 

 bellied Flycatcher, which seemed to come from directly under my feet. 

 The locality was a good-sized hummock of moss, in swampy ground at 

 the edge of some low woods. For some time I was unable to find any 

 signs of a nest, but finally I discovered a small hole one and a half 

 inches in diameter in the side of the hummock, and on enlarging this 

 opening the nest, with four eggs, lay before me. The bird, which had all 

 the time been hopping around within a few feet of our heads, was at once 

 shot. The cavity extended in about two inches, was about four inches in 

 depth, and was lined with a very few grasses, black hair-like roots, and 

 skins of l>erries. The eggs, four in number, are white, with a very delicate 

 creamy tint, which differs in its intensity in the different specimens, and 

 are spotted, mostly at the larger end, with a few clots and blotches of a 

 light reddish shade. 



