rather proud to show off its nest to interested and flattering strangers. 

 A typical nest thus pointed out by an over-obliging bird was saddled 

 neatly on a horizontal limb of a balm tree at the height of about 30 feet from 

 the ground and the ever-present lake. Since it was found on June 12th, 

 (1896) this nest contained three fresh eggs. It made an easily marked 

 prominence on the two-inch limb which supported it, and measured, in- 

 side, I j4 inches deep by 2 inches wide ; outside 2 inches deep by 3 inches 

 wide. It was composed of dried grasses, vegetable fibres and the famil- 

 iar gray hemp. A few feathers and bits of cotton from the old catkins 

 of the balm tree were worked in ; but there was no apparent differ- 

 ence in the texture between the inside and the outside and no attempt at 

 external ornamentation or concealment. Hence quite different, it will 

 readily be seen, from the shallow, lichen-colored nest of the common 

 Wood Pewee. The eggs are not distinguishable from those of C. virens. 



WiLLi.AM L. Dawson, Obtn-lin, O. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



Notes from Bervvyn, Penn. — Increasing Species. — With the evi- 

 dence at hand of the decrease in numbers and the not infrequent disap- 

 pearance entirely of many of our birds in various localities, it has been 

 a good deal of pleasure to me to note a more or less marked increase in 

 numbers of a few of our local species during the past season. The Red- 

 headed Woodpecker, Melatierfes erythrocefhahis, the first to attract 

 the attention and admiration of him who was destined to be known as the 

 Father of American Ornithology, is far from common. It has been ob- 

 served oftener during the present year than for a period of the six years 

 preceding. Several were found wintering with us, and several broods 

 of young were raised, to my knowledge. It became quite a common 

 occurrence to note several of the beautiful Scarlet Tanagers, Piranha 

 erylhromelas, in a few minutes' walk during the May migrations, while 

 the average number of individuals in former years was very few. The 

 increase became preceptible last year to a less degree, when it was first 

 found nesting. This season, its unobtrusive " c/u'ck-chur '' became a 

 familiar sound, issuing from almost every suitable thicket of saplings 

 and wild grape vines. Up to June 2, of the present year, I was practi- 

 cally unacquainted with the Purple Martin, Prague subis. Whether it 

 be through the breaking up of a colony or the surplus of an over crowd- 

 ed neighborhood, we are the gainers of perhaps more than a half-dozen 



