i8Ss.] General Notes. ^8 1 



noon of January 31, 1885, I met Mr. Hitchcock, and together we went to 

 the place where he saw the Sparrows on December 29, and also to the one 

 in which they were found by Mr. Lamb in January, 1883.* Quite near 

 the latter locality were the fresh and only partly frozen remains of a Spar- 

 row (an undoubted Melosfiza palustris, as I afterward made sure by 

 comparison) which had evidently been killed by a Shrike. 



From the above it would appear almost certain that the birds were 

 present during the entire month of January, and it is very probable that 

 they might have escaped my notice when I looked for them later. If the 

 original flock consisted of only four there could not have been more than 

 two left for me to find, and in the tangled underbrush, which, in one 

 swampy place at least, extends over several acres, they might easily have 

 eluded me. 



I have always considered that any species found here in January was 

 an undoubted winter resident, and its presence at any date during that 

 month sufficient proof of this. Mr. William Brewster tells me that he 

 considers the autumnal migration ended here by December 25, and Janu- 

 ary, the one winter month when all birds (except such erratic species as 

 Crossbills. Pine Grosbeaks, etc.) are settled for a brief period. If Janu- 

 ary is not accepted as the test month it will be almost impossible to de- 

 termine our rarer winter residents, for early in February some of our 

 most hardy spring birds often begin to arrive. 



It seems to me it is unsafe to say that ••it is hardly possible that Swamp 

 Sparrows passed the winter in Massachusetts in a seas-on so rigorous as 

 was that of i884-'S5 after the middle of January," for there arc numerous 

 instances recorded of the wintering of certain birds far north of their 

 usual habitat at that season, even during exceptionally cold winters. f 

 The warm and open character of the winter of i884-'S5 previous to Janu- 

 ary i§ might also have caused the birds to establish themselves in a local- 

 ity which they would have been unwilling or unable to leave later. 



I think it is almost equally certain that the Yellow-rumped Warblers 

 were also wintering at Pine Point. Maine, as they do regularly at Milton. 

 Mass. (onlv about ninety miles south), where I have found them every 

 winter for a number of years. — Arthur P. Chaimsourne. Cambridge, 

 Mass. 



Note on the capture of Coturniculus lecontei and Dendrceca kirtlandi 

 within the city limits of St. Louis, Mo. — Leconte's Sparrow, male, was 

 taken April 1. 1885. on dry ground in a prairie overgrown with coral-berry 

 bushes (Symp/iori'carpus). The earliness of the date seems to he remark- 

 able. Another specimen, in the collection of Mr. Hurter. was taken in 



* fourn. Boston Zool. Soe., II (1K83), p. 32. 



t I find that the following southern species have been recorded from h'astern Massa- 

 chusetts during the very cold winter <>t 1882-83: — Flock of six Sialia sialis ( |ob, Bul- 

 letin Nuttall Club, VIII, 1883,13.149); two Molothrus ater (Spelman, ibid., p. 121); 

 and a Dendroeca pinus (Brewster, ibid., p. 120). See also Auk, I, 1884, pp. 294, 295, 

 and Bulletin Nuttall Club, IV, 1879, p. 118. 



