144 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



recent years. There are published accounts of its capture at Nahant, on No- 

 vember 21, 1875;' in the Sudbury Meadows, "some years" before 1878;^ 

 at North Truro, "early in February," 1892;^ at Salem, on July 10, 1894;* at 

 Ipswich, in October, 190 1 ;^ at Ellisville, Plymouth County, on January 20, 

 1903.'' 



To these records I can add the following, none of which, I believe, have 

 been hitherto reported : — 



On September 9, 1893, an adult female King Rail was shot in the marshes 

 bordering the Neponset River, just above Readville, Massachusetts, by Mr. J. 

 H. Bowles who, on August 27 of the following year, killed a second specimen 

 in these marshes, flushing it, by a curious coincidence, within a few yards of the 

 spot where his first bird was secured. Both specimens were mounted by Mr. 

 Bowles. I believe that he still has the one taken in 1893 ; the other he gave 

 me several years ago. I also have the head and legs of a King Rail which Mr. 

 Charles R. Lamb has contributed to my collection and which bear the original 

 label, inscribed as follows : " Collection of Foster H. Brackett, Boston, Mass. 

 No. 677, Chatham, Mass., Sept. 24, 1884. ^ ." Mr. Lamb thinks that the 

 bird to which these fragments once belonged was shot by Mr. Brackett him- 

 self, but as the latter gentleman is no longer living this impression cannot now 

 be verified. 



It will be observed that two of the above records relate to birds taken in 

 midwinter. We also have knowledge of a specimen that was killed at Falmouth, 

 Maine, on December 17, 1899." Thus the occurrence of the King Rail in 

 Cambridge at so late a date as December 30 is not, after all, very remarkable. 

 Nor would it be surprising to find that the species breeds occasionally in eastern 

 Massachusetts. Such a possibility is suggested by some of the evidence just 

 given and also by the condition of the bird taken by Mr. Bowles on August 27. 

 This specimen, although fully grown, is evidently a very young bird, for it still 

 retains a number of feathers which are characteristic of the first or juvenal 

 plumage of the King Rail. 



IH. A. Purdie, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, II, 1877, 22. 

 ^/i,W., Ill, 1S78, 146. 

 ^G. S. Miller, Jr., Auk, IX, 1892, 396. 



*C. W. Townsend, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, 

 Massachusetts, 1905, 159. 

 = /Hit. 



° A. L. Reagh, Auk, XX, 1903, 304. 

 'H. H. Brock, Auk, XIX, 1902, 285. 



